


Talk Nerdy To Me

by andabatae



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben and Rey are nerds, Ben is kind of a dick, But a hot dick, But only those narrated by Kylo Ren, Classroom Sex, Crack and Smut, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Erotic Poetry, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Guest lecturer Ben Solo, Masturbation, Poetry, Professor Ben Solo Reads Erotic Poetry Out Loud, Rey gets off to nature documentaries, Semi-Public Sex, Size Kink, Smut, Snarky Ben Solo, TA Rey, Vaginal Sex, Voice Kink, Window Sex, nature facts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:57:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andabatae/pseuds/andabatae
Summary: Grad student Rey is addicted to watching nature documentaries narrated by the mysterious Kylo Ren. In fact, listening to him recite animal facts is her favorite masturbation inspiration.One day, the poetry class she TAs for has a guest lecturer: Ben Solo, a large, cranky man with gorgeous hair, adorable glasses... and a very compelling voice.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 604
Kudos: 1974





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ksco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ksco/gifts).

> This is ridiculous, but I wanted to write more voice kink, and I got this cracky idea and couldn't resist. This is for [Ksco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ksco/pseuds/Ksco), who mailed me a lovely face moisturizer out of the goodness of her heart! Thank you for the moisturizer, and I hope you enjoy this! It should hit all the tropes you like.

Rey couldn’t wait for Finn to leave the apartment. Sure, her roommate was her best friend, and she enjoyed hanging out with him, but Sunday nights were sacred. Ever since Poe and Finn had started having date nights every Sunday, it had become the one night a week Rey got to really indulge herself.

And oh, how she planned to indulge herself tonight. She had everything laid out and ready: the bowl of popcorn, the wine, the face mask, and, back in her bedroom, the vibrator. She would work her way through those items roughly in order, but she couldn’t really get started until Finn left. The most crucial component of the night required the TV, and Finn was like a moth to flame when it came to television, the result of an unhealthily conservative upbringing.

“You sure you’ll be fine alone, peanut?” Finn asked, just as he had the last six Sundays. His brow was creased with worry.

Rey appreciated his care for her well-being, but she was starting to get irritated by the repeated question. She and Finn had both grown up in foster care, though, and she knew he was projecting some of his own fears onto her. As children of neglect and abuse, they had clung to each other like life rafts upon meeting freshman year of college, but they were older now, more established. Finn had a partner he loved, and Rey…

Well, Rey had TV, wine, and a vibrator, and that was good enough for her.

“I’m good,” she said gently. “Go have fun with Poe. Don’t you dare come back until tomorrow morning.”

Finn’s smile was nearly blinding. “Oh, I have no plans to come home tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow night.” He winked. “I don’t know who’s more insatiable, Poe or me.”

“Too much information!” She mimed covering her ears while Finn laughed. “Now get out of here, peanut.”

“Fine, fine.” He backed out of the living room with his hands up. “But get to bed early—you have class in the morning. And don’t watch too many cat videos while I’m gone!”

Rey’s smile grew awkward. “No cat videos here. Only normal human entertainment. Yep. Totally normal.”

She told herself what she was about to watch _ was _ normal, even if her reasons for watching it weren’t.

The second the door closed behind Finn, she lunged for the remote. She flicked through the streaming options to documentaries, and there it was. “Mating Seasons,” the latest episode of _ Secrets of Planet Earth_, the premier documentary series for anyone interested in nature, animals, or interesting trivia.

Or, in Rey’s case, someone interested in a certain narrator’s voice.

“Welcome to Secrets of Planet Earth,” a deep, resonant voice announced, and Rey shivered. “Springtime brings enormous change to our fragile planet. Icy landscapes melt while new life struggles towards the strengthening sunlight.”

A montage of ice melting and fronds unfurling filled the screen, but Rey only cared about one thing.

_ Him. _

_ Narrated by Kylo Ren _ flashed across the TV as part of the introductory credits, and Rey sighed in appreciation. Kylo Ren was the sweetheart of the nature documentary world, but he also appeared to be an international man of mystery, with no identifying information available anywhere. She’d tried to Google him to no avail (which was really saying something, since Rey was an exemplary Googler). It seemed no one had ever taken a photograph of the man, and his IMDB page just listed the various documentaries he’d narrated, all produced by Skywalker Films. All Rey knew was that Kylo had a passion for animal facts and a voice suited to either commanding armies or manning a phone sex line.

Oh, and she knew his voice made her really fucking horny.

"Springtime also means a time of plenty for animals who survived the lean winter. They seek food, establish territory, and, of course, begin the search for a mate."

Rey shivered. God, if Kylo Ren was really going to be talking about sex all episode, she might not survive.

“We begin our exploration of mating practices in the mountains of south central China, which are home to a rare and solitary creature. There are fewer than 2,000 giant pandas in the wild, and since females only give birth to one cub every two years on average, scientists are eager to study the reproductive habits of these majestic mammals.”

Riveted to the screen, Rey shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth, following it with a swig of wine.

“...in the wild, male pandas compete for the right to mate a desired female. With the female only receptive to sexual advances a few days a year, competition for the right to mount her is fierce.”

_ This _ was why Finn wasn’t allowed to attend Rey’s documentary nights. Because the sound of Kylo Ren’s voice saying words like “mate” and "sexual" and “mount”...

Well, Rey was getting turned on.

This was weird. She acknowledged it was weird as she watched the female giant panda rub her butt on a tree to deposit enticing secretions. _ That _ definitely wasn’t sexy, but then Kylo started purring about _ dominance _ and _ copulation_, and Rey couldn’t help but wonder what _ he _ would look like during copulation.

It was entirely possible Kylo Ren was 83 years old, but somehow Rey knew he wasn’t. His voice practically throbbed with virility. No, whoever he was, Kylo Ren was a man who_ fucked_.

“Mating is a difficult task, as the male giant panda has a very small penis compared to his body size. To learn which animal has the largest penis compared to body size, we must head underwater.”

Rey was admittedly curious to learn which animal was swinging a big honking dick around the ocean, but she was more curious about Kylo Ren’s penis. Was he hung? He sounded like he was hung.

Rey had never done a study to determine what well-endowed men’s voices sounded like, but intuition counted for something, right?

“The blue whale’s majestic member is technically the largest in the animal kingdom, reaching up to ten feet long—”

Rey winced. “Ouch.”

“—but once you compare penis length to body size, a less ostentatious animal takes the prize. Since barnacles are stationary, their penises can extend up to ten times their body length in search of a mate.”

Rey gaped at the TV, horniness battling with horror as she contemplated the miracle of nature. Why were there so many weird dicks in the animal kingdom? 

Ten minutes later, after witnessing the banana slug’s terrifying shlong and the Argentine lake duck’s nightmarish... yeah, she didn't want to dwell on that too long... she decided this episode was just too weird to be getting off to, so she switched back to an old favorite: “Deep Seas.”

Kylo’s voice greeted her with a purr. “In the deep places of the world, life is nearly unrecognizable. Beyond depths that would crush a human, strange creatures flourish in the dark, their lives only visible to us in glimpses.” On screen, delicate-looking… fishy things… bobbed in front of a submarine’s light. “We’ve barely begun delving into the mysteries hidden in the blackness, but what we do know paints a picture of a world of startling beauty and cruelty.”

Rey wasn’t sure why this episode did so much for her, but something about the way he spoke about darkness and cruelty always made her toes curl. She poured a large glass of wine and settled in, ready to let Kylo’s voice whisk her away.

At forty minutes into the episode, Rey had already drained two glasses of wine and applied a green face mask. She was also pantsless and running a vibrator over her clit while Kylo Ren murmured about the wonders of the ocean.

“The Pacific viperfish lures in prey using the photophores on its dorsal spine. It strikes quickly, seizing its victim with needle-sharp teeth. The fish succumbs instantly to its fate.”

Rey moaned. He said “succumb” like he was tasting the word, exploring its every contour. She closed her eyes so the viperfish’s fangs wouldn’t distract her from the orgasm she was working towards. Instead, she imagined Kylo whispering in her ear: _ Succumb to me. Embrace your fate. _

She came so hard her leg kicked out and knocked over the glass of wine. She lurched over to try to retrieve it, but she was spasming too hard to coordinate her limbs, and she ended up toppling over onto her side. Her facemask-encrusted cheek left a green smear on the couch cushion, and her flailing arm knocked the popcorn bowl onto the floor.

Rey spent the final ten minutes of the episode cleaning up the mess she’d made, but as she scrubbed vigorously at the carpet, she couldn’t regret it. She was brimming with endorphins, practically glowing. Self-Care Sundays were essential to keep her balanced, and now that the semester had started up again—along with her grad student work and TA responsibilities—she needed the release more than ever.

Tomorrow was only the third week of classes, and she was already exhausted on a bone-deep level. She was currently writing the last third of her dissertation on the female gaze and Byronic heroes in popular media, while also TAing for three of her advisor’s classes: “Introduction to Romantic Literature,” “The Poetry of Longing,” and “The Depiction of Female Power in Literature.”

As she settled into bed an hour later, face squeaky clean, hair conditioned, and a second orgasm acquired, she reflected that it was a good thing _ Secrets of Planet Earth _ had been renewed for a fourth season, because she was going to need a _ lot _of Kylo Ren content to make it through the next year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is going to be nerdy, cracky, smutty fun. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Let me know what you think ❤️


	2. Chapter 2

Rey was in her seat at the front right of the auditorium ten minutes before class started. Dr. Leia Organa didn’t tolerate tardiness, and Rey wanted to impress her advisor. Dr. Organa was a feminist icon and political powerhouse, and Rey had admired her for years.

This class, “The Poetry of Longing,” wasn’t Rey’s favorite to TA, but that was mostly because the Western canon of literature focused way too much on mopey white men have mopey white man thoughts. She was tired of hearing upper-class 19th-century poets long for death or love or whatever else they hadn’t been able to buy yet.

Four minutes before class began, Rey’s phone buzzed repeatedly. Since Dr. Organa wasn’t there yet, Rey fished it out of her pocket to read the messages.

Leia: sorry forgot to tell  
Leia: sick today  
Leia: guest lecturer  
Leia: good luck!

Rey blinked at the sequences of messages. Wait, Dr. Organa wasn’t going to be there? And there was a guest lecturer? Rey wasn’t prepared for this at all.

The class had mostly settled in by the time Rey realized she had no idea what was about to happen. Would a guest lecturer actually appear? Would Rey be left to handle the class alone? Would Dr. Organa drop from the ceiling screaming “Surprise!”?

Minutes passed with no sign of a guest lecturer. Just when Rey decided to dismiss the class, rather than winging a lecture she wasn’t prepared for, the door at the back of the auditorium blew open. An enormous man barrelled through, a pile of folders and papers sandwiched under his arm and his face creased with a scowl.

He was younger than Rey had expected—maybe mid-30s—and Rey had a suspicion that if he would stop frowning so intensely, he might be cute. He was pale, with thick black hair and a bold nose, and his glasses and tweed coat definitely added to the hot librarian vibe. As he passed Rey’s seat, she caught a whiff of his cologne—dark, woodsy, and enticing.

“My name is Ben Solo,” he announced once he’d slapped his pile of papers down on Leia’s desk at the front of the room, “but you can call me Dr. Solo. I’m your guest lecturer today.”

Rey stiffened at the sound of his voice. There was something familiar about that deep, resonant tone. Had she met Dr. Solo before?

“Where’s Professor Organa?” one of the students asked.

“Sick.” Dr. Solo glowered down at the papers, then picked one up and dramatically ripped it in two. “This is your piece of shit syllabus. We won’t be using it today.”

Excited murmurs and laughs came from the students, but Rey crossed her arms and glared at him, all thoughts of where she’d heard his voice before scattering. Who the hell did he think he was, questioning Leia’s curriculum?

Dr. Solo’s eyes snapped to her. “Is there a problem, miss?”

Rey twitched under his intense appraisal, but she hadn’t made it through a tough childhood, a move to a new country, or grad school by being a coward. “You’re being disrespectful,” she said. “That syllabus is excellent.”

His brows crashed together. “How would you know?” he sneered. “Let me guess: you’re a community college transfer whose strategy for succeeding in real school is brownnosing?”

Rey stiffened as guffaws broke out behind her. As a matter of fact, she _ had _ transferred from Jakku Community College to Chandrila University as a sophomore—and community college _ was _ real school, thank you very much—but she was now top of her PhD cohort.

“Actually,” she said in as withering a tone as she could manage—and since she was British, she could be quite withering when she put her mind to it—”I’m the TA for this class. Rey Johnson. My name is on the syllabus you just ripped up—assuming you read it, that is.”

They locked eyes for what felt like an eternity, but Rey refused to look away first. She cocked one damning eyebrow, daring him to insult her again. To her surprise, the corner of his mouth quirked up. “My apologies, Miss Johnson. I shouldn’t have made assumptions.”

That half-smile made her realize how full his mouth was. Jesus. Lips like that ought to be illegal.

She was still processing that fucking mouth when Dr. Solo addressed the class. “I was dismayed to see that a class called ‘The Poetry of Longing’ failed to address the most basic human desire. Can anyone tell me what that is?” He pointed at the first person to raise their hand. “You.”

“Love?” Jessika Pava said.

“No. And that’s an especially asinine answer, since fully half of your assigned poems are about love.” He pointed at another student. “You.”

Snap Wexley’s cheeks were pink. “Um… reproduction?”

The rest of the class snickered, but the noise died down when Dr. Solo swept a glare over the room. “Yes,” he said. “But there’s no need to be so proper about it. We’re talking about sex. _ Fucking_.”

Another wash of giggles broke over the room, but Rey felt a tremor low in her belly at the sound of that word—_ fucking _—coming from those plush lips. His voice was dark and honeyed, making everything sound like a sensual promise.

_ Why _was it so familiar?

“Since Professor Organa isn’t here to stop me, we’re going to rectify that gap in the curriculum and discuss the most fundamental human longing—the desire for sex and intimate companionship.” His gaze slid to Rey, and his lips curved slightly. “Assuming that meets with your approval, Miss Johnson?”

Rey’s heart was racing. She licked her lips. “Yes, Dr. Solo.”

“Good.” He held her eyes for a few more seconds before returning his attention to the class. “We’ll be reading and discussing erotic poetry today. _ Without _ any juvenile giggling. Failure to behave like an adult will result in you being ejected from the class.”

It was obvious he meant it. The class settled down, and a hush fell over the room as Dr. Solo started lecturing.

Rey watched him with fascinated awe. He was just so… compelling. He was in constant motion, pacing while he spoke, his hands inscribing elegant arcs in the air. Despite her initial impression of him—that he was a pompous bastard—Rey had to admit he was a talented lecturer. He asked insightful questions, and his more confrontational approach with the students led to some interesting debates.

“Now, let’s read a few poems that explore physical longing.” He pulled a slim, well-worn paperback from his jacket pocket, folding the cover back in a way that made Rey twitch with outrage on behalf of the poor book. “We’ll begin with John Donne’s ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed.’” He cleared his throat, then started reciting the poem. “Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy / Until I labour, I in labour lie…”

Rey listened, enraptured by the rhythms of his speech and the way his free hand moved as if conducting an orchestra. It wasn’t a particularly steamy poem, in her opinion—at least, not at first.

“Licence my roving hands, and let them go / Before, behind, between, above, below.”

Dr. Solo’s eyes held hers as he spoke those lines from memory, and Rey squirmed in her seat. He had big hands, she realized. Big hands with long, thick fingers that were probably good at roving.

She felt flushed. Had someone turned up the heating?

Thankfully, he wrapped up that poem quickly, and the ensuing discussion was lively enough to get her mind off the erotic potential of his hands. God, she needed to get laid. Or at least, she needed a better vibrator, since her Sunday night session apparently hadn’t scratched that itch properly.

Something niggled at her, an odd feeling of familiarity about the way Dr. Solo spoke, but when he licked his finger and turned the page, that glimpse of the pink tip of his tongue was enough to make all coherent thought scatter.

“Now to something more recent,” he said. “‘The Floating Poem, Unnumbered,’ by Adrienne Rich is much more explicit in its description of sex. Listen to how she presents the body as a landscape to be explored:

“Whatever happens with us, your body  
will haunt mine—tender, delicate  
your lovemaking, like the half-curled frond  
of the fiddlehead fern in forests  
just washed by sun.”

Rey couldn’t look away from him. He spoke each word deliberately, lingering over the syllables in a way that was hauntingly familiar. Her sense of déjà vu only increased as he kept reading.

“Your traveled, generous thighs  
between which my whole face has come and come—  
the innocence and wisdom of the place my tongue has found there—  
the live, insatiate dance of your nipples in my mouth—  
your touch on me, firm, protective, searching  
me out, your strong tongue and slender fingers  
reaching where I had been waiting years for you  
in my rose-wet cave—”

He paused, then met Rey’s eyes once more. “Whatever happens, this is.”

Silence fell heavy over the room. Rey couldn’t look away, couldn’t move or speak to break the spell he’d woven over her. Her lower belly tightened at the thought of _ his _ face between her thighs, _ his _ mouth on her breasts. She was wet, her nipples straining against the fabric of her shirt, and a shiver raced over her.

Dr. Solo’s nostrils flared, and then he turned away. “This poem is relatively short, but the poet manages to convey a lot of detail. Based on what you just heard, who are these two lovers?”

Rey couldn’t pay attention to the discussion. She was too distracted by the spark that had just passed between them. Surely she hadn’t imagined the hunger in his eyes? Was he as caught up in this bizarre carnal attraction as she was?

It was absurd to be this attracted to a man whose one direct interaction with her had been quite rude, but Rey’s body apparently didn’t care whether or not this man was a raging arsehole. Her body might even like it, she realized as she watched him tear a student’s argument to shreds with vicious precision.

The class continued in this manner for forty more torturous minutes, during which Rey heard more erotic poetry than she was equipped to handle. It was a good thing this was her only class of the day, because she needed to go home for an emergency self-care session if she was going to be able to get any work done on her dissertation.

“I will conclude with my favorite line of erotic poetry,” Dr. Solo said, closing the book. “Sappho, fragment 38.” His whiskey-brown eyes settled on Rey once more, and the sizzling connection between them was nearly tangible in the way her skin prickled and flushed under that stare. “You burn me.”

Why those three words would wreck her worse than the last hour of pearls and wet caves and roving hands had, Rey didn’t know. She shivered all over, and heat bloomed from her cheeks to her chest. She sat in a daze while the classroom emptied, too high on Dr. Ben Solo to move.

“Everything all right, Miss Johnson?”

The question startled Rey out of her lustful stupor, and she jumped to her feet, gathering her things. “Everything’s fine, thanks,” she said in an overly-chipper tone. God, did he realize she’d just spent the last hour fantasizing about him while squirming in her chair?

The way he was smirking at her from behind Leia’s desk suggested he might, and that reminder of his arrogance brought Rey back to reality. She had no idea who Dr. Solo was or where he normally taught or literally anything about him except that he was a jerk who recited poetry like dampening panties was his life mission.

“Interesting lecture,” Rey said. “I’m sure Leia will be... fascinated to hear about your choice of topic.”

He huffed. “Oh, she’ll undoubtedly call me up in an outrage and ask why I’m so hell-bent on corrupting the youth, at which point I’ll explain that shielding students from taboo topics doesn’t do them any favors, and then we’ll shout at each other a bit before she orders me to come over for dinner to explain myself to her face. Which is a ploy, of course, but I’ll humor her anyway, even though I’d rather gnaw my own leg off than sit through one of her family dinners.”

Rey blinked. “That’s a very detailed hypothetical.”

“It’s not a hypothetical when you’ve pissed her off as much as I have over the years.” His mouth curled in a self-satisfied smirk. “I’m very good at it.”

“I’m sure you are.” Rey eyed him with a mix of horniness and distaste, which was a confusing thing to be feeling. Why did this arrogant arse have to be so hot? How did Leia even know him, and why had she entrusted him with her class? “Anyway, we’ll probably never meet again, so good luck with… whatever it is you do.”

He laughed. “Oh, you’ll be seeing me again, Miss Johnson. I’ll be teaching Wednesday’s class, too.”

“Oh.” Rey told herself she wasn’t excited about that, but the quivering between her legs said otherwise. She tried for a nonchalant tone. “How will you corrupt the youth next time?”

He winked at her. “You’ll have to find out.”

#

Finn was, thankfully, still at Poe’s, which meant Rey had the apartment to herself. She tossed her book bag to the floor, retrieved her vibrator from her bedroom, and planted herself on the couch for some self care. She was horny as fuck, but she didn’t want to masturbate to thoughts of the arrogant Dr. Solo, so she turned on the TV and navigated to "Wild Plains and Grasslands," a classic _Secrets of Planet Earth_ episode.

The swell of strings announced the opening credits as Rey turned the toy on. She sighed in relief as the first vibrations shook through her clit. This orgasm wouldn’t take long to achieve.

“Vast stretches of grass cover the African savanna, as seemingly endless and unknowable as the sea.” Kylo Ren’s smooth voice came through the speakers, and Rey twitched as the sense of déjà vu she’d had during class crashed down on her again. What was _ with _ her today?

“These environments can be as cruel in the dry season as they are generous in the wet season. Only the most adaptable of animals live here year-round.”

Rey stimulated herself as a herd of wildebeests loped across the screen, pursued by lions. The chase was fast and brutal, much like this masturbation session. Damn it, she wanted to come _ now_.

“The lions have survived the beginning of the dry season, but more dangers await. With vegetation at its driest, this brushfire spreads quickly, and the savanna burns into a landscape of ash.”

The word ‘burn’ made Rey twitch. Disconnected phrases rattled around in her head. _ The savanna burns into a landscape of ash. The body is a landscape. You burn me. _

The knowledge that had been hovering just out of reach snapped into place.

“Oh my God,” Rey gasped as she burst into orgasm. She rode the clenching waves out, her mind spinning as a very familiar voice murmured about predatory instincts and the savage grace of wild animals.

Holy fucking shit.

Rey stared wide-eyed at the TV, hardly noticing the way the lions were ripping into a baby antelope. There was a reason she’d been having déjà vu all day, a reason Dr. Solo’s voice had seemed so compelling. She hadn’t been able to piece it together at the time, too distracted by his erotic poetry and arrogant sex appeal, but the truth was obvious now.

Kylo Ren… was Dr. Ben Solo.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter count went up because I am trash for this absolutely absurd concept. More animal facts! More poetry! More voice kink! More sex!

“Hey Peanut!” Finn blew into the apartment like a tornado that night, smiling and glowing in that way only post-coital people do. “How was your—” He stopped short when he saw Rey on the couch. “Whoa, everything okay?”

Rey looked at him with reddened eyes, holding the remote to her chest like Gollum clutching the One Ring. The ninth straight episode of _ Secrets of Planet Earth _ was playing on the widescreen TV. “Fine,” she croaked. “Why do you ask?”

Finn approached her cautiously, eyeing the mountain of snacks, the empty coffee cup, and the half-empty bottle of wine. “Are you having a movie marathon or something? By yourself?” He looked at the screen, then groaned when he saw what she was watching. “Oh, no, you’re not on a Kylo Ren kick again, are you?”

Finn had been present when Rey had first discovered _ Secrets of Planet Earth_, and he’d been a witness to her subsequent month-long obsession. The obsession had extended long beyond that, of course, but Rey had started keeping it secret after Finn had expressed concern about her ‘inability to connect to real humans.’

Rey groaned. “It’s worse than that.”

Finn kicked his shoes off, then sank onto the couch next to her. He made a face and shifted, pulling something out from under him. “What is… _ oh my God_.” He flung the object away from him with a look of horror. “Rey, what the fuck?”

Rey winced when she realized what he’d just chucked halfway across the room: her bright pink vibrator. “I can explain...”

“Can you?” Finn demanded. “Because it looks like you’ve been watching nature documentaries and masturbating on our fucking living room couch!”

Rey’s cheeks flamed. “Well, uh, yeah. That’s the explanation, I guess.”

Finn groaned. “Rey, _ no_. I sit on this couch! Can’t you do it in your bedroom?”

Rey was dying. She wished she could melt into a puddle of mortification and never be seen again. “I need the TV. And the sound system.” 

Finn looked at the TV just in time to see an otter family rip into a caiman in a bloody, high-stakes battle for the survival of the otter pups. His jaw dropped. “This is what you’re getting off to?”

“Not the otters,” Rey said, trying to explain. “Or the caimans. Or any of the animals. Just his voice.”

“Holy shit.” Finn’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “I feel like I need to stage an intervention, but I have no idea where to even begin.”

Rey muted the TV—which was difficult, since Kylo was purring something about ‘stunning brutality’—then turned to face Finn fully. She was having a crisis, and since her roommate was the only person who really understood her, she needed him to tell her what to do. “The point isn’t that I’ve been getting off to Kylo Ren. It’s that _ I found out who he is_.”

Finn looked confused. “What?”

“I know who Kylo Ren is. In real life.”

He squinted at her. “Through, like, internet stalking?”

“No!” She groaned and buried her face in her hands, hearing echoes of Kylo/Ben’s voice in her head. _ Your traveled, generous thighs. The North American eastern painted turtle can breathe through both its lungs and its posterior. The giant Pacific octopus has three hearts, nine brains, and blue blood. Your body will haunt mine_.

_ You burn me_.

Her mind was a tangle of eroticism and animal facts. She’d been unable to resist the compulsion to rewatch _ Secrets of Planet Earth _ now that she had a face to put with the voice. Now that she could visualize Dr. Ben Solo’s plush lips shaping each word…

Finn snapped his fingers, jolting her out of her reverie. “Earth to Rey. What are you talking about?”

Rey explained everything: her secret masturbation sessions to Kylo Ren’s voice, the rude guest lecturer with the sinful mouth, and her realization that the two men were one and the same. “He was so _ hot_,” she moaned. “And he was reciting erotic poetry, and I think he was hitting on me, and what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

Finn was doing an admirable job of staying calm in the face of her crazy. “So you’re into him and he was hitting on you. What’s the problem?”

“How can I ever look him in the eye again, knowing how much I’ve masturbated to him?”

He chuckled. “Babe, welcome to the universal male experience. Just ask him out.”

“But he’s a jerk.”

“So? You’re a pervert who gets off to nature documentaries.”

She slapped his arm. “Don’t you dare judge me. Remember last Halloween, when you told me which anime characters you would fuck in which holes?”

He winced. “Damn those tequila shots.”

“So what do I do?” Rey asked, her tone edging towards a whine.

“Well, you could masturbate to his voice for the next four years—_not on the couch, though—_”

Rey nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”

Finn rolled his eyes. “Or you could just ask him out for coffee after class.”

She winced. “That sounds hard.”

Finn cast his eyes to the heavens. “Hopeless.”

After nine straight hours of _ Secrets of Planet Earth_, Kylo’s voice was still echoing in her head. If she remembered correctly, the end of this episode contained a particularly passionate segment about bird courtship dances. Rey’s eyes slid towards the screen again. She didn’t realize her hand was inching towards the remote until Finn slapped it away.

“No,” he said firmly. “No more _ Secrets of Planet Earth_. Go to bed and think about how a normal human being would ask out someone they have a crush on.”

Rey sighed. “Fine.” Normal human behavior wasn’t her strong suit, but Rey would do just about anything to get Ben Solo’s lips on her body and his voice in her ear.

#

Dr. Solo was already standing behind Leia’s desk at the front of the auditorium when Rey arrived. His eyes shot to her, and Rey focused on putting one foot in front of the other as she descended the steps towards her seat. She’d dressed up today in a white wrap dress and nude heels, and she relished the way Dr. Solo’s gaze lingered on her.

His mouth lifted at one corner. “Miss Johnson,” he rumbled. “What a pleasure to see you again.”

She inclined her head. “You as well, Dr. Solo.” She settled into her seat, making a show of crossing her legs so the split edges of her dress parted over one tan thigh. If he was going to challenge her self-control by reading erotic poetry again, she was going to do her best to be equally distracting.

His eyes shot to the bare stretch of leg as if magnetized, and he bit his lip, his slightly crooked teeth sinking into that reddened, lush curve. Tension built between them, a crackling electricity that made Rey’s belly quiver and her pulse speed up. She’d never felt this kind of erotic connection with anyone before, and she wondered if he felt it, too.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but just then, a group of rowdy students spilled into the room, and the moment was lost.

“Welcome,” he said once the class had settled. “Since Professor Organa is still sick, we’re going to continue our discussion from Monday. We’ll be delving deeper into the poetry of lust and longing.”

The sound of his voice saying ‘deeper’ made Rey squirm with pleasure. It mixed with memories from last night’s documentary marathon, which had featured “Deep Seas” again. _ In the deep places of the world_...

After a brief discussion of what to keep an eye out for in these poems—animal imagery, treatment of the taboo, crude versus sacred language—he introduced the first poem: “Lust,” by Yusef Komunyakaa. “If only he could touch her…” he started reading, and Rey was immediately enraptured.

The poem was short and filled with nature metaphors, as so many erotic poems seemed to be, but Rey really liked the last few lines, which Dr. Solo spoke with delicious precision. “He longs to be / An orange, to feel fingernails / Run a seam through him.”

She imagined running her fingernails down Dr. Solo’s back, carving pink lines into his pale skin as he thrust into her roughly. Jesus, maybe she should have written her dissertation on sexy poetry, because this was really doing it for her.

The poems were even more explicit this time. She listened in fascination to the lewd and kind of gross “Sonnet of the Asshole” by Rimbaud and Verlaine, then to “Love Poem on Theme by Whitman” by Alan Ginsberg, which was extremely hot. “Legs raised up crook'd to receive,” Kylo recited in his deep, resonant voice, “cock in the darkness driven tormented and attacking roused up from hole to itching head, bodies locked shuddering naked, hot lips and buttocks screwed into each other…”

Rey let the words wash over her, staring at the way his huge hands bent his erotic poetry book in half as he recited fantasies out loud. She’d masturbated before class, hoping to take the edge off, but it was no use. She was as turned on as she’d ever been, her body thrumming with erotic energy, her underwear soaked. Those thick fingers and soft lips would wreck her, she just knew it.

Dr. Solo moved on to Pablo Neruda, the language beautiful and lyrical: “I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body…”

Rey’s favorite, though, was a recent poem by Sierra deMulder called “When the Apocalypse Comes,” which managed to be both sexy and hilarious. The opening had nearly sent her through the roof.

“When the apocalypse comes  
and all the windows are shattered  
and the car tires have melted into the pavement,  
once all the schools and hospitals  
and skyscrapers have folded in on themselves  
and the last street lamp has wilted like a starving flower,  
I will still want to fuck you.”

He’d leveled his dark gaze on her when he’d spoken that line, _I_ _will still want to fuck you_, and that memory was going in Rey’s spank bank for the rest of recorded time. She listened in rapture as Dr. Solo detailed the carnage of the apocalypse and the poem writer’s subsequent carnal feast.

“When the apocalypse does come,  
I will rebuild our city with my tongue.  
I will suck this world’s ashes from your fingers.  
I will refuse to let the fires of this hell  
be the only thing that makes us sweat.  
When the apocalypse comes,  
so will we.”

Rey was about to come right then and there, truth be told. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, squeezing them tight to try to get pressure where she needed it. Dr. Solo’s gaze shot to her, and a muscle under his left eye twitched. He shifted, then lowered the poetry book, holding it in an overly-casual manner in front of his crotch. “Class dismissed,” he said abruptly. “I have a meeting to attend. Dr. Organa will be back next week.”  
  
The students were obviously confused, but they didn’t need to be told twice; early dismissal was a rare and precious gift. Once again, Rey found herself slow to rise, her body throbbing with need and her mind hazy with thoughts of Dr. Solo bending her over his desk and fucking her hard. She struggled to put her notebook back into her messenger bag, hands shaking with pent-up lust.  
  
What had Finn said? Ask him out to coffee like a normal human being? How was Rey supposed to do that when all she could think about was Dr. Solo whispering filth into her ear as he drove into her from behind?  
  
She looked up from her bag, and her eyes locked with his. He stood frozen at the front of the auditorium, still covering his crotch with the book, but his knuckles were white with how tightly he was squeezing it. Five heartbeats passed, then ten.  
  
Finally, Rey opened her mouth to say something, but just then, Dr. Solo tossed the book to the floor and strode toward her. She gaped at the outline of an erection behind the placket of his slacks. “Wow,” she breathed.

Dr. Solo came to a stop within arms’ reach, and Rey was forced to tear her eyes away from his dick. His jaw was tense, and his eyes burned. “You have two choices,” he said, brushing the pads of his fingers over her cheekbone. Rey shivered and leaned into the touch. “You can walk out of here right now and never have to see me again. Or, you can stay.”  
  
She licked her lips. “What happens if I stay?”  
  
His lips curved slightly. “Oh, I think you know.”  
  
Rey’s cunt clenched around nothing, and her lower belly ached with growing need. There was only one way she could answer that question. “I’ll stay,” she whispered.

His smile spread, and the wicked look in his eyes nearly made her faint. “Then lock the door.”


	4. Chapter 4

The click of the lock sounded impossibly loud. Rey hesitated for a moment after with her hand on the knob, then sucked in a deep breath and turned around.

Dr. Solo was waiting for her at the base of the auditorium steps. Even with his glasses softening the harsh lines of his face, he looked dangerous and magnetic. His all-black suit made her think of Hades, beckoning her down into the underworld.

Rey began her descent, walking carefully in her heels. He watched her avidly, unmoving except at the very end, when he lifted his hand. Rey eyed it for a second, then slipped her fingers into his, accepting the unspoken offer.

A jolt went through her at the contact. The pads of his fingers were warm, and callouses marked where he gripped his pen. He squeezed her hand, then tugged her towards him.

Rey closed her eyes, expecting a kiss, but none came. His breath puffed hot against her lips, as ragged as her own. “I don’t really know you,” he said in a low voice, “but you’re all I’ve thought about since Monday.”

She shivered. “Me, too,” she confessed.

“Look at me.”

At his command, Rey’s eyelids fluttered open. She met his searing brown gaze, tracking the way his pupils expanded.

“If you let me,” he said quietly, “I’m going to take you apart. Piece by piece, one touch at a time. I’m going to wreck you, Rey.”

A soft noise escaped her throat, needy and inarticulate.

“Do you want that?” he asked, his gaze never leaving hers. “Do you want me to fuck you so hard and so well you never forget the feel of me?”

She nodded, unable to form words.

He eased closer, his free hand landing on her lower back and tugging her against him. She tilted her head up to maintain the intense eye contact. “You want me inside you?” he asked as the hand on her back traced intricate patterns over the fabric of her dress. “You want my cock deep in your wet cunt, filling you up until you can’t take anymore?”

Rey moaned and shifted her hips. The hard jut of his erection pressed into her belly. Fuck, it felt huge.

He leaned forward, and his lips brushed her ear with his next words. “Do you want to be _ fucked_, Rey?”

Lust burned through her. She was a live wire, crackling with erotic electricity as currents of passion zinged between them. “Yes,” she choked out. “Do it, Ben. Do it now.”

A tremor went through his massive frame, and his exhale fluttered the fine hairs at her temple. Then he tugged her up on her toes and slammed his mouth down on hers. He kissed her roughly, finesse lost in the storm of passion that had swept them up, but Rey didn’t mind. She was equally uncoordinated, gripping his hair tightly as she slanted her mouth over his.

He made a growling sound, then planted both hands on her ass and lifted her off the ground. Rey wrapped her legs around him, grateful for the flexibility afforded by her wrap dress. He could take her wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted to her. She felt like lust personified, raw desire condensed into human form.

Her back hit the nearest wall, and she groaned as his hips ground against her. His cock slotted perfectly into place, that thick bulge rubbing against her clit through the layers of their clothes.

“Christ,” he said, ripping his lips away from hers. “This is insane.”

“Is it?” Rey felt drugged as she looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes. His cheeks were flushed, his lips red and swollen from their kisses.

“This connection,” he said as he nibbled a line down her throat. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

“Me, neither.”

“I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you, glaring at me so fiercely.” He squeezed her ass tighter, kneading it as he continued rocking against her. “It killed me, reading those poems and seeing you squirm.” He sucked the side of Rey’s neck, making her gasp. “Were you wet?” he asked in that dark, sinful voice. “Tell me.”

“Yes,” she said. “So wet.”

“I knew it.” He sucked lower and harder—she would definitely be left with bruises. “I could see it in your eyes. I was reading all those poems just for you. Could you tell?”

“Yes.” Rey’s head tipped back, thunking against the wall as she gave him more room to work at her neck. “It turned me on.”

She felt his smile against her throat. “Good.”

Then he turned and carried her away from the wall. Rey found his mouth again, covering him with frantic kisses. He tasted like coffee and the residual mint from his toothpaste. His tongue slid over her own, and she suckled it lightly, then nipped at his bottom lip.

Dr. Solo— _ Ben—_set her down on Professor Organa’s desk. Papers and books toppled to the floor as he swept it clean. Then he planted his large hands on her thighs and shoved her legs apart, nostrils flaring as he looked down hungrily. Rey followed his gaze and saw that her wrap dress had come apart just enough to show a hint of her white underwear.

“Gorgeous,” he rasped, those long fingers squeezing her thighs. Then he grabbed the tie to her dress and pulled, working it out of the loops that held the dress in place. He dropped the white sash on the floor and parted the halves of her dress to reveal her lingerie.

Rey flushed and squirmed. She’d worn a decent set of white lace undergarments, but they looked virginal juxtaposed against his all-black attire. The contrast was oddly erotic.

“Like a present,” he mused, tracing a finger over the tiny bow between her breasts. “All wrapped up for me.”

Rey pushed her chest forward, needing his hands on her breasts. “Please touch me, K—Ben.” Shit, she was having a hard time keeping his identities separate. She’d been obsessed with Kylo long before she’d known Ben’s name, and that _ voice_...

He hummed, then encased her breasts in his massive hands, kneading them before plucking at her nipples. “God, I love your tits,” he said, staring down at them in fascination. “Are they sensitive?”

“Mmhmm.” Rey braced her hands on the desk as she pushed herself into his hands.

“I bet you have the prettiest little nipples,” he said. “What color are they, Rey?”

Jesus Christ, she should have known he’d be a talker in the bedroom. How was she going to survive this? “P-pink," she stammered.

His plush mouth quirked as he pinched her through the soft cups of her bra. “Pink like seashells or pink like berries?”

Oh, shit, he was busting out nature talk. Rey’s pussy clenched, and a fresh rush of arousal soaked her panties.

Rather than stripping off her bra, he peeled the cups down and secured them under her tits, plumping up her small breasts. He groaned at the sight of her pointed, pale pink nipples. “Like seashells,” he breathed as he pinched them. They reddened under his rough touch, and Rey squirmed as a jolt of pleasure shot from her breasts down between her legs. Then he lowered his head and sucked a nipple into his mouth, and she was utterly undone.

“Oh, yes,” she groaned, sinking her hands into his soft hair. His full lips wrapped around her nipple to suck, and then he opened his mouth wide, as if trying to fit as much of her breast in his mouth as possible. He sucked and licked at her, playing with her other breast with long, dexterous fingers, then switched sides. Rey clutched him against her, her hips rocking on the desk as she sought the pressure she needed against her throbbing pussy.

“Take your clothes off,” she demanded. “I want to see you.” She wanted to touch him, too, to run her lips over his chest and nip his nipples and find out what would make him as insane as he was making her.

He pulled back and shucked off his coat, then unbuttoned his shirt. Rey leaned forward to help shove it over his shoulders, gasping in delight when she saw his muscled torso. “You’re beautiful,” she said, trailing her hands over the corrugated ridges of his abdomen. Maybe it was a strange word to apply to a man, but it fit. If anyone was the epitome of male beauty, it was Ben Solo.

He tried to get his lips on her breasts again, but Rey was faster. She lunged in to mouth at his collarbone, then pressed hot kisses against the muscle between his neck and shoulder. She sucked hard, marking him as surely as he had just marked her. He groaned in response, his head falling back.

Gratified by his response, Rey continued her explorations, sucking and licking her way down his torso. His nipples didn’t seem to be that sensitive, but he made gratifying sounds as she kissed over his pecs and lower, and stroking a spot on his side made him squirm and bat her hand away. He was ticklish; Rey filed that information away for future reference.

She paused with her lips pressed to his skin. Was there a future here? Or was this just a one-off, the inevitable consummation of a carnal attraction neither of them had been able to fight?

Rey wasn’t a fan of one-night-stands in general—they left her feeling hollow, and her upbringing had given her massive trust issues that made it difficult to get intimate with strangers. This was different, though, although she couldn’t have articulated why. All she knew was that she’d never felt this sort of instant attraction to anyone before.

Kylo’s hand sank into her hair, and he tugged her head away from his chest. His eyes were wild as he looked down at her. “I need to touch you,” he said in a filthy, guttural tone.

Rey shivered. He didn’t sound like Kylo Ren right now, but he didn’t sound like Dr. Ben Solo, either. He sounded like a man who was coming undone.

She barely had time to nod before he’d pushed her back to lie flat on the desk, her calves dangling over the edge. He slipped her shoes off, then slid a hand beneath her back to unsnap her bra. Her underwear went next, and then she was lying nude before him, her thighs split around his hips.

He trailed his fingers from her breasts to her lower belly, then around to cup her ass. He squeezed the tender skin there as he stared at her exposed pussy, then licked his lips. “I can’t wait to taste you.”

Rey moaned and arched her back. She normally felt awkward about oral sex, but apparently none of the usual rules applied to Ben Solo. She was _ desperate _ to feel his mouth on her. “Please,” she begged.

Ben’s lips tilted. “Please, what? Tell me exactly what you want.”

“You.”

He hummed. “Flattering, but not specific enough.”

“Y-your mouth.” Rey writhed on the desk, desperate for stimulation. She pinched her own nipples, then snaked a hand between her legs.

Quick as a flash, Ben grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away. He tsked and shook his head. “That’s my job.”

He bent over to grab something, and Rey was too lust-addled to realize what he was doing until the sash of her dress was knotted around her wrists. “Ben, what—”

“Shh.” He lifted her bound hands over her head, then crossed behind the desk. There were a few tugs on the sash, and then he returned to his position between her legs. Rey pulled on the bindings and quickly realized that he must have tied the free end of the sash to the leg of the desk.

“Why?” she whined, unable to stay still as she yanked on the tie and rocked her hips. This was so fucking hot, but she needed pressure against her clit right now or she was going to snap.

He smirked at her. “Because you’re impatient. You need to be taught that good things are worth waiting for.”

She huffed. “Ironic, since we’re fucking within days of meeting each other.”

He gripped her chin, holding her still while he fixed her with a fiery stare. “Don’t diminish our connection like that,” he said in a low, intense voice. His hand trailed down to press over her racing heart, then lower, cupping her gently between the legs. “You feel this?” He stroked her gently, making her moan. “This passion between us?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“This is beyond the realm of the ordinary. What we have can’t be defined by anything as meaningless as time.”

Rey was still piecing together that overly dramatic—yet stunningly romantic—sentiment when Ben sank to his knees.

She waited in breathless anticipation while his breath gusted over her soaked pussy. When she lifted her head, she could see him staring at her cunt with an expression that somehow managed to be savage and reverent all at once.

“You’re beautiful here,” he said, trailing a finger over her slit. “But that’s hardly a surprise, since you’re beautiful everywhere.”

The compliment hit her like fine wine, making her head spin. She nudged her hips up, encouraging him to lick her, but Ben pressed a hand to her stomach, holding her down. “Not yet,” he said. “I want to make this last.”

He kept staring and breathing on her, and Rey was about to lose her mind from a mixture of arousal and embarrassment. What was he looking at? Surely her labia weren’t _ that _fascinating. “Hurry up,” she said, squeezing her thighs around his shoulders. He was so broad the stretch almost hurt, but Rey would take that pain any day of the week.

He took a deep breath, then started speaking. “As I would free the white almond from the green husk / So I would strip your trappings off, Beloved.”

Rey gaped down at him, her mind reeling from a mix of lust and confusion. “What?”

Ben ignored her, continuing to trace a finger over her. “And fingering the smooth and polished kernel,” he continued, circling her clit, “I should see that in my hands glittered a gem beyond counting.”

_ Oh, it’s poetry. _ Rey barely had time for the realization before Ben took his glasses off, then pressed his mouth against her pussy. She cried out, jerking against the tie binding her wrists. The fabric didn’t yield, and the knowledge that she was helpless to do anything but experience this pleasure lit her on fire.

Ben’s lips slid over her intimate contours, and his tongue delved deep inside her body. “You taste delicious,” he growled between licks. “Like the ocean and every fucking dream I’ve ever had.”

Rey moaned, lost in the sensations he was building. He licked her everywhere before focusing on her clit, and that long, strong tongue was a miracle. She bucked against his face, desperate for more, and he obliged, eating her out with abandon as he slid a finger inside her.

"So tight,” he groaned against her throbbing clit. “So _ wet_.”

He crooked that finger inside her, stroking over her G-spot as he alternated between sucking her clit and rubbing it in precise circles. Rey tightened around him, her muscles straining towards the pleasure that hovered just out of reach.

He inserted a second finger, keeping up that firm, stroking rhythm inside her. “Come for me,” he told her. “Let me hear it. Let me _ taste _ it.”

Then his lips were wrapped around her clit again, sucking with so much fervor, it almost hurt. Rey twisted and writhed, trapped in place by his mouth and his questing fingers and the sash knotted at her wrists. “Oh, oh—” she said as unbearable tension built between her legs.

Then she was shaking and coming apart, the hot rush of pleasure spilling into her veins. She choked on sharp cries, grinding against him as she rode out the tremors of her orgasm.

“Exquisite,” he praised when she finally settled down with a whimper. He pulled his fingers out of her, then sucked them clean. “You’re delicious.”

She groaned and tugged on the tie at her wrists. “Please,” she begged. “Let me touch you.” She needed to worship him with her mouth and hands, to make him feel the exact same pleasure that had just torn her apart on a molecular level and reassembled her into someone brand new. She felt purified by her orgasm, cleansed of the tension and worries that plagued her daily life. The way he was looking at her made her feel downright holy.

He rose and put on his glasses, then fumbled with the knot at her wrists. The moment she was free, Rey surged upright, wrapping her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck. She tugged him into a fierce kiss, relishing the faint tang on his lips that spoke of where he’d been.

They kissed for what felt like ages. Her hands tangled in his hair, and her pussy left wet smears on the front of his pants as she rocked against him. She was making a mess of him, but he’d just made a mess of her, so it was only fair.

“Off,” she said against his lips, tugging on his belt buckle.

He reached between their bodies, his lips still locked with hers as he struggled to undo the belt. Finally, it was off, and his slacks followed, dropping to his ankles. Rey slipped her fingers under the waistband of his boxer briefs and tugged them down, and his cock sprang out. She didn’t want to stop kissing him, but she had to see it, so Rey pulled away. His teeth lingered, tugging on her lower lip before letting go.

Rey stared down at the erection currently brushing her thigh. “Oh my God,” she breathed, hardly daring to believe her good fortune. His cock was thick and perfect, so big she wondered if she could even fit her hand around it. The soft skin covering that hard column was a duskier shade than the rest of his body, and the pronounced veins twining around it looked downright lickable. “Can I taste it?” she asked.

Ben shuddered. “Fuck,” he said, gripping it in one hand and squeezing at the base. “I don’t think I would survive.”

“So… is that a yes?” Rey looked at him hopefully.

He shook his head. “Not this time, sweetheart. I don’t think I can live another second without being inside you.” He stepped closer, trailing the head of his cock over her slit. “If that’s what you want?”

Her heart fluttered at the idea that there might be a _ next time_. “Yes.” She rocked against him, sighing as the smooth cap of his dick rubbed over her clit. “I want you.”

“I have a condom in my wallet,” he said, stepping back. “Let me—”

Rey locked her ankles behind him, feeling greedy and inflamed. “Do we need it?”

His jaw dropped, and he looked at her like she was a goddess who had descended to earth. “I…” He cleared his throat. “I’m good if you are.”

Rey nodded. “Good in all the ways.” This was reckless—she knew it was reckless—but she couldn’t resist the urge to feel him bare inside her. This entire scenario was beyond belief, this raw, carnal attraction something she already knew she’d never experience again.

Whatever might happen between them in the future, she wanted all of this moment, as pure and fierce as she could get it.

He took himself in hand, and Rey helped guide him to her soaked entrance. There was a pause as they just breathed, and then Ben notched the tip of himself inside her and pushed in, one thick inch at a time.

Rey clutched his shoulders, gasping. He was huge, filling her beyond anything she’d experienced before. She buried her face in the crook between his neck and shoulder as she absorbed the feeling.

“All right?” he asked hoarsely once he’d bottomed out. One hand settled on her hip, but the other came up to stroke her head, his long fingers sifting through her hair. “Talk to me.”

“So good,” she whispered. She darted her tongue out, savoring the faintly salty taste of his skin.

“Look at me.”

She lifted her head and promptly lost her breath. He was looking at her with hunger and awe, like he’d never seen something he wanted so badly. Like she was the center of his universe. 

This was so intense, so fast, but Rey was helpless to do anything but fall into his dark eyes. She’d never been wanted like this before. Never been needed the way he seemed to need her.

“You feel it, too?” he murmured.

She nodded. “I do.”

It felt like a promise, like she was making a sacred vow. _ You’re not alone. You’ll never have to be alone again. _

This was madness. But as Ben pulled out, then eased back in, Rey couldn’t care about that. She would gladly go mad for more of this.

He fucked her slow and steady at first, gripping her hips for leverage. Rey leaned back, bracing her hands on the desk and hooking her ankles around his lower back. His muscles flexed and rippled with each thrust, and she admired the picture he made, like a chiseled marble statue come to life.

“You feel so good inside me,” she told him.

He groaned and increased the pace, pumping into her harder. “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees,” he said, punctuating the sentence with a rough thrust. “_Fuck_, Rey.”

Rey assumed that last bit wasn’t part of whatever poem he’d just been quoting, but she liked it just as much. Wanting him closer, she wrapped her arms around his neck. He grunted and leaned forward, one palm slapping onto the desk for support as he pounded into her.

He attempted to say something else, but it was garbled and interrupted by cursing, and eventually he gave up. They fell into a panting, moaning rhythm, bodies giving and taking as the desk squeaked under Ben’s punishing thrusts. Rey surrendered utterly, giving herself over to this intense, magnetic man and the pleasure he gave her.

She’d never felt like this with a lover before. Never even imagined it could feel like this.

He slid a hand between them and rubbed her clit with his thumb. “Want you to come for me,” he gasped. A drop of sweat slipped from his jaw to her temple as she tried to claw him even closer.

She whimpered and hung on for dear life as he fucked her like it was his God-given mission to make her orgasm harder than she ever had before. She felt it approaching, a delicious tightening, a nigh-painful anticipation. She feared she couldn’t handle much more of this, but she needed it to never stop.

The orgasm blew through her hard, leaving her shaking and groaning as her pussy fluttered around his cock. It was agonizingly good. His brutal thrusts jolted stuttered cries out of her throat, and she clung to him like a shipwreck survivor desperate to stay afloat. She’d never come from penetrative sex before, but once again, he proved the exception to every rule. As the tremors rattled her to her core, she sobbed his name again and again. “Kylo, Kylo, Kylo...”

His rhythm stuttered, but then he gripped her tighter and kept hammering into her. “Rey,” he said in a strangled voice, and then he was jerking against her, his huge body shuddering as he came inside her.

They clutched each other tightly, breathing hard in the aftermath of the greatest sexual encounter of Rey’s life. Then Ben pulled back a little. His brow was furrowed with some odd expression.

“What is it?” Rey asked once she’d caught her breath.

“You called me Kylo.”

_ Oh, shit_. Rey froze, staring at him. “Uh…”

“How do you know that name?”

Time to come clean. She told herself it wasn't a big deal that she happened to know about his alter ego. “I… well, I recognized your voice. And I, uh, like your work on _ Secrets of Planet Earth _ very much.” Too much, truth be told. “I appreciate it. Vigorously.” Shit shit shit, this was not at all how she’d wanted to bring this up. She hurriedly backtracked. “Erm, I mean, enthusiastically. Yes. I am enthusiastic about… animals.”

She wasn’t prepared for the look of hurt that crossed his face before he abruptly pulled out of her and started tugging up his slacks. “So you’re some obsessed fan, is that it? You thought you’d seduce the mysterious Kylo Ren, get a fun story out of it, maybe some money from a gossip rag?”

“What?” Rey hopped off the desk, too panicked to bother putting on clothes or cleaning up the cum dripping down her thigh. She grabbed his arm, stilling him. “_No_, Ben. I only figured out who you were after that first class. The attraction was there from the start.” She swallowed hard, terrified that this marvelous, rare thing might disappear before her eyes. “Please believe me. I muddled up the names in the moment, but I'm attracted to _you _the person. This was—it is—very real to me.”

He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “Sorry,” he said. “I just… there was some creepy stuff online when the show first came out. People trying to figure out who I was. Stalker stuff. I’ve been a bit paranoid since then.” He turned his eyes to her, and she saw his own fear reflected there. “And if you had ulterior motives for what just happened between us… I don’t think I could bear it.”

She stepped closer, pressing herself against him. “No ulterior motives,” she promised, then went on tiptoe to kiss him. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but I wanted it so badly, and I don’t regret it. I think we could have something really special.”

His eyes softened. “I do, too.”

“Then let’s see where this goes.”

“I’d like that.”

They smiled at each other.

“I’m glad you don’t actually work with Leia,” Rey said. “First of all, more erotic poetry classes would probably kill me, but she’s also my advisor. I can’t afford any potential conflicts of interest this close to defending my dissertation.”

Ben winced. “About that…”

The sound of the doorknob jiggling interrupted whatever he was about to say. Rey looked at it, frozen in place. It was locked, right? But then came a few metallic scraping sounds, and, to her horror, the door swung inward.

“There you go,” a custodian was saying to someone outside. “Although you should be home resting.”

“Thanks, Pete. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay, since I know class was let out early.” The female voice was gravelly and familiar.

Rey squeaked and dove for her clothes, but it was too late. Professor Leia Organa swept into the room, then stopped short at the sight of a half-naked Ben Solo and a fully nude Rey scrambling to put their clothes back on.

“What the—” Her expression grew furious. “Benjamin Breha Organa Solo, _ what _ are you doing with my best grad student?”

Rey’s jaw dropped. She clutched her dress to her chest, covering her nudity as she looked between Ben and Leia. “O-Organa Solo?”

Ben winced and ran a hand through his hair, looking at her apologetically. “I meant to tell you,” he muttered.

Rey felt like she was watching a car crash in slow-motion. “Tell me what?”

She already knew, though. _I’d rather gnaw my own leg off than sit through one of her family dinners… _

He sighed, then turned to Leia as if facing an executioner. “Hey, Mom. I’d say it’s good to see you, but…” He gestured at his state of undress. “Obviously not.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You are both in so much trouble.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😬


	5. Chapter 5

There was nothing worse than sitting in front of your PhD advisor next to the man she'd just caught you fucking in her classroom.

Except when that man was your advisor’s son.

And his cum was still dribbling down your leg.

Rey squeezed her thighs together, hoping she wouldn’t leave a smear on the chair. If Leia didn’t like seeing Rey naked with her son, she _ really _ wouldn’t like having his actual semen smeared around her office.

“Explain yourselves,” Leia said. She was glaring daggers at each of them in turn, alternating who received the worst of her disapproval.

“Well,” Ben drawled, “it goes something like this, Mom. When a man and a woman find each other incredibly attractive, sometimes they take their clothes off and mash their sensitive bits together to—”

“I know what sex is, Ben,” Leia interjected. “I want to know why the two of you were engaging in it in my classroom during the middle of the school day.”

“Oh, good," Ben said, ignoring her last sentence. "I’m glad you know what sex is. You never gave me ‘the talk,’ after all—the nanny had to do that.” He smirked. “Maybe you should blame her for my poor moral character, since she had more of a hand in raising me than you did.”

Leia rolled her eyes. “I’m delighted to know that chip is still on your shoulder. But my parenting, lackluster as it may have been, isn’t the issue at hand. The issue is you defiling my graduate student in my classroom.”

Rey felt oddly peripheral to their argument, like they were just using her as a set piece in their ongoing family drama. “With all due respect,” she said, finally finding the courage to speak, “you talk about encouraging sex-positive language in your classes all the time, but ‘defiling’ definitely isn’t a sex-positive word.”

“It’s hard to be positive about sex when it’s thrust upon you unwittingly in the middle of the work day,” Leia said dryly. At Ben’s snort, Leia rolled her eyes. “Spare me the juvenile jokes.”

Rey’s cheeks felt like they were on fire. She shifted, then winced when another trickle of cum eased out of her and into her already-sodden panties. “I apologize for alarming you,” she said. “It was… unexpected. This isn’t something I do on a normal basis.”

“I certainly hope not.” Leia cast an annoyed look at Rey. “The sex itself—uncomfortable as it was for a mother to witness—isn’t the issue. It’s your choice of when and where to have sex. If an undergrad had walked in on you, that could have been a lawsuit. You could lose your funding. Your position.”

Dread filled Rey’s chest, and she wilted. “I understand,” she said, blinking rapidly to stem the welling tears. “And if you decide to report me, I’ll accept that. I just—”

“Hey,” Ben interrupted, one big hand coming to rest on hers. Concern filled his dark eyes, and when he noticed Rey’s tears, his mouth flattened into a grim line. He glared at Leia. “There’s no need to terrorize her. I was the one who initiated it. If you must report anyone, report me. God knows I don’t need the money.”

“I was a willing participant,” Rey protested, not wanting him to take the fall for her. “And you’re a visiting lecturer from… I don’t even know where you’re from, actually.” She winced at realizing how little she knew about Ben Solo, other than that he had a passion for poetry, a side job narrating nature documentaries, and an unbelievable dick. “This is my university, which means I’m the one with the obligation to maintain a certain moral standard.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Ben said. “Fuck moral standards. Do what you want.” He eyed her up and down, and a hint of smirk lifted one corner of those plush lips. “I certainly did.”

Rey recoiled, stung by his callous tone. She jerked her hand out from under his. “So this was just a casual shag for you, is that it? A fun distraction?”

His eyes widened. “Wait—”

A worse thought hit her, a theory that seemed more plausible the more Ben needled his mother. “Or maybe you thought it was hilarious to _ defile _ your mother’s graduate student? Was it some sort of petty revenge?”

He definitely looked panicked now; probably because he didn’t want to confess to anything so diabolical in front of his mother. “Rey, please, let’s talk about this.”

That wasn’t a denial. Rey shook her head, dashing at the tears in her eyes with the back of her wrist. He hadn’t meant what he’d said, after all—but then again, could any man be trusted to speak honestly to a woman he wanted to shag?

How could she have been so foolish?

“I can’t believe I let myself think… Well, whatever your reasons, I don’t want to sit here and listen to them. I have work to do.” She stood up, unable to meet Leia’s eyes. “I’m sorry again, Dr. Organa. This isn’t like me. And if you need to kick me out of the program…” Her voice wobbled and broke, but she tried again. “If you need to kick me out, I’ll understand. I’ll just… go back to where I came from.”

Back to the cesspool she’d once believed she’d left behind forever. Back to a life with no future. All those dreams, hoarded carefully through a painful childhood and polished to brilliance over years of working hard to make herself into someone who mattered, would disappear like morning mist.

It made her think of a Robert Frost poem. _ Nothing gold can stay_…

She hurried out of the room, ignoring Ben’s sputtered protests. The last thing she heard before closing the door was Leia’s voice.

“Well, you’re a fucking idiot.”

#

This time, when Finn found Rey watching _ Secrets of Planet Earth_, there was no vibrator in sight.

Instead, she was crying while an enormous lizard stalked across the screen.

“The Komodo dragon samples the air with its forked tongue, catching the scent of a nearby goat,” Kylo Ren/Ben Solo narrated. “At nearly ten feet long, this lizard isn’t intimidated by the size of its potential prey. It stalks closer, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.”

Rather like Ben, she thought bitterly. He’d seen an opportunity to get back at his mother for some childhood slight, and Rey had been the prey.

“Uh, peanut?” Finn eased onto the couch beside her, looking nervously between the empty bottle of wine, the pile of crumpled Kleenexes, and Rey’s tear-streaked face. “You seem really upset about that lizard.”

“The Komodo dragon swallows the goat whole,” Kylo purred. “It’s a slow process, taking fifteen to twenty minutes, but this lizard decides to speed it up. He slams the bloodied carcass against a tree, trying to shove it further down his throat.”

“I’m the goat,” Rey whispered, more tears overflowing her eyes. “He fucked me over a desk, and now he’s slamming me into a metaphorical tree.”

Finn picked up the remote and hit pause, making a face at the particularly gory image the screen had frozen on. “Okay,” he said, shifting to face her fully. “You’re a weirdo, and I love you for it, but this is a little extreme even for you. What’s going on?”

Rey broke down and told him everything. The poetry, the way Ben had slammed her into a wall, how he’d eaten her out while she was tied up, the size of his dick, how he’d fingered and then fucked her, his massive cock, how hard he’d made her come, his—

“Yes, Rey,” Finn interrupted with a wince. “You’ve told me how big his dick is like eight times already. What happened _ after _ this extremely detailed sex scene?”

Thankfully, Finn was properly horrified to hear about Leia bursting in, then gratifyingly outraged at Ben’s callous comment. “What a dick!” he said. “Like, who says that to someone they want to see again? Who says that in front of their_ mother? _”

“That’s the thing.” Rey blew her nose. “I don’t think he wants to see me again. I think he just wanted revenge on Dr. Organa because he had a shitty childhood.”

Finn eyed her oddly. “Rey, that… I’m not sure that makes sense.”

She waved a hand, dismissing his doubts. “Of course it makes sense. As she said, he clearly has a chip on his shoulder, and he seemed to enjoy needling her about catching us. He probably thought it would be a great idea to ‘defile’ me.”

Finn, who had heard countless stories about Rey’s grad program by now, shook his head. “I still can't believe Dr. Organa said something so sex-negative.”

“Right?” Rey dabbed her nose, then tossed the crumpled-up tissue on top of the coffee table.

“But I still think he likes you,” Finn said. “Not that he deserves to be with you unless he issues a heartfelt apology for being a dumbass, of course. But all that stuff you told me about your connection and how he wanted to see where this thing goes… guys don’t say that stuff if they don’t mean it.”

“They do if they want to get a girl in bed.”

“He’d already gotten you in bed, so to speak. He didn’t need to bullshit if he never planned on seeing you again.”

“Oh.” Rey bit her lip. “Well, why didn’t he stop me from leaving? Or deny having ulterior motives?”

“Because he’s a dumbass?” Finn shrugged. “I don’t know, peanut. Maybe he really is terrible. You’ll have to wait and see how things shake out. But in the meantime…” He turned the TV off. “You’re not allowed to watch any more _ Secrets of Planet Earth_.” Rey grabbed for the remote, but he held it out of reach. “No,” he said firmly. “I’m hiding the remote until you can come up with some healthier coping mechanisms.”

Rey was simultaneously upset and relieved that she was being forced away from this particular hobby, which even she recognized was getting unhealthy. There was only one problem. “But what will I masturbate to now?” she whined.

Finn rolled his eyes. “I wish I could burn the knowledge of your freaky masturbation habits out of my brain, but since I can’t…” He sighed. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but there’s a little thing called ‘porn’ that normal people get off to.”

Rey made a face. “I don’t like porn. It’s all penises and bleached assholes and cum shots.”

“Weirdly enough, that is exactly what I like about porn.” Finn nudged her shoulder. “Come on, peanut. I’ll show you how to search for female-gaze-friendly porn, and you can find something else to think about while you wait to hear back from Dr. Organa and Ben. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”

#

And it did work out, sort of. Rey developed an interest in indie erotica, and trampling porn was great when she needed to get out some pent-up aggression. Slowly, the need to masturbate to animal documentaries faded. Best of all, Dr. Organa emailed to say everyone made mistakes and she was still welcome in the graduate program, although she wanted Rey to spend time meditating on appropriate locations for sexual congress.

But Ben never contacted her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😬


	6. Chapter 6

It was a month after the incident with Ben Solo when Rey stepped into her advisor’s office for a meeting to discuss her dissertation. They’d emailed, but since Leia had been out of town for a few weeks, this was the first big sit-down since Rey had utterly humiliated herself and nearly wrecked her chances of staying in grad school.

Rey was nervous and sweating, but Leia looked totally nonchalant as she scribbled notes at her desk. She was a traditionalist, preferring pen and paper to laptops. “Take a seat,” she told Rey. “I’m just finishing this off.”

Rey sat and looked around the office, taking in the details she hadn’t paid much attention to before. Leia had a mountain of books, naturally, covering every subject from poetry to aeronautical engineering. For the first time, though, Rey paid close attention to the evidence of her advisor’s personal life.

There were certificates and photos from various charity events, but the main feature on Leia’s desk was a photo of her with her on-again, off-again husband, Han (though how a spouse could be on-again, off-again was baffling to Rey). On one bookshelf sat a small picture depicting a much younger Leia and Han and a shy-looking child with black hair and huge ears. It must be Ben, although Rey was amazed he’d ever looked that dorky.

Then again, as an adult Ben wore tweed and quoted poetry during sex, so maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised.

The place in her chest where Ben had taken up residence ached. How was it that she’d only met him twice, yet she felt like she’d known him forever? Like she was _ meant _to know him for even longer?

“So,” Leia said, slipping off her reading glasses. Her brown gaze was direct but not unkind. “First, I want to check in on your emotional health. I know what happened last month was… upsetting.”

Rey squirmed in her chair, wanting desperately to avoid this conversation. “I’m fine. Again, I can’t apologize enough—”

Leia lifted a hand, cutting her off. “Stop apologizing, Rey. I have some things to say, too. And I’m sorry it’s taken this long to sit down with you.” She cleared her throat. “The issue wasn’t you sleeping with Ben, although I admit to being surprised and not reacting as positively as I could have. The issue was solely one of location and possible effect on your education.”

“Yes, I know.” Rey hung her head.

Leia rapped her knuckles on the table. “I’m still talking," she said sternly.

“Sorry.” Rey tried to look meek.

“The point is, I was worried about you—about what would have happened if anyone else had walked in on you. I would never have kicked you out of the program, and I hope you know that—I just wanted to impress on you how badly that day could have gone. And I’m not upset about your relationship with Ben. In fact…” Her lips curved up. “I’m rather delighted by the prospect, now that I’ve had time to think about it. I’d given up on anyone ever putting up with him, and you’re tough enough not to tolerate his bullshit.” Leia took a deep breath and reached across the table to clasp one of Rey’s hands. “The point is, I’m sorry I reacted so intensely in the moment, and I hope you don’t feel uncomfortable with me now.”

Rey blinked rapidly, determined not to cry in front of her advisor. “Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”

“Good.” Leia beamed. “Now that that’s out of the way, how is your relationship with my son going?”

Rey gaped at her. “My… what relationship?”

Leia’s brow furrowed. “You’re dating, right? How is it going? He’s always telling me I need to stop meddling in his life, but honestly, if I don’t meddle, who will?”

Now Rey really felt like crying. “We’re not,” she choked out. “Dating, that is. I haven’t heard from him since that afternoon in your office.”

“What?” Leia gaped at her, and Rey felt even worse witnessing her advisor’s surprise. If even Leia thought Ben ought to have wanted to date her, what did it mean that he hadn’t reached out?

Rey picked at a loose thread on her sweater. “We haven’t talked. He doesn’t know my number, but there’s all sorts of other ways he could have found me if he really wanted to.”

“I’m going to murder him.” Leia certainly looked like she might; her face was creased with a ferocious glower. “When we talked, I could have sworn he was going to reach out to you. If he didn’t…” She shook her head. “Well, I’m extremely disappointed in him.”

A tear slipped free, and Rey wiped it away. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here to discuss my dissertation, right? That’s what’s important.”

Leia didn’t look convinced, but she finally nodded. “All right, we’ll move on. Let’s talk about your dissertation.”

The next hour was full of lively, edifying discussion, and Rey gradually settled back into a comfortable rhythm with her advisor. She was grateful to have a strong female mentor and glad their relationship would continue unchanged, no matter what had happened—or hadn’t happened—with Ben. So what if Rey had had sex with a man who apparently wasn’t worth her time? That was a fairly universal female experience, but the opportunity to make her mark on academia was rarer and far more important.

“Oh,” Leia said when Rey was gathering up her things, “can you send me back your slides for our joint presentation? You never responded to my email.”

Rey’s stomach dropped. “Slides? What slides?”

“The ones I emailed you about last week. For the conference? I need them by Friday.”

Panic seized Rey’s heart in an iron grip. She would swear she hadn’t gotten an email. “Um, are you sure you actually emailed me?” It wouldn’t be the first time Leia had made a basic technological error.

Leia pulled out her smartphone and poked at the screen, holding it as far away from her as possible so she could read the words without her glasses. “There,” she said, thrusting the phone towards Rey. “Proof I’m not the ancient, incompetent old biddy I sometimes resemble.”

Rey shook her head, chuckling at the idea of anyone finding Leia Organa incompetent, then looked at the screen. Sure enough, it was an email from Leia to Rey, sent a week ago. Except…

“Oh, you sent this to my university email address.” Rey used her Gmail account for almost everything, as did Leia, since the university email provider was terrible and had almost no searchability. “I haven’t checked that in months.”

Leia sighed. “Well, you’d better start, since I can’t guarantee I’ll always send emails to the right place. Do you think you can put together the slides in time?”

Rey scrolled through the email, feeling encouraged once she realized it was only a few slides in a larger presentation. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll start work on it right away.”

“Excellent.” Leia smiled, then touched Rey’s hand. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Ben,” she said, “but I’m very glad you’re my student.” 

Rey smiled weakly and left, wondering when her failure with Ben would stop hurting so badly.

#

When she got home, Rey pulled up her university email to find Leia’s instructions. She had to reset her password, since she’d forgotten it, but eventually she was able to confront the apocalypse of her inbox.

**359 unread.**

That wasn’t too bad. She knew from experience that most of them would be pointless university-wide mailings and invitations to dull seminars, but she paused when she saw an unbroken line of emails all from the same sender.

**B Solo.**

“Oh my God,” she said, her stomach plummeting. There were ten emails from him, starting the day they’d had sex. With a feeling of mingled dread and excitement, she opened the first email.

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: I’m so sorry**
> 
> My dearest goddess,
> 
> I cannot apologize enough for what happened today. I swear I had no idea my mother would show up, and she was the furthest thing from my mind while we were having sex. In fact, I never want to think about those two things in conjunction again. There was no revenge plot and no ulterior motive for what I did-I just find you incredibly attractive, and I want to worship you with my hands and mouth and cock for as long as you’ll let me.
> 
> After you left, my mother informed me that I was, and I quote, “a fucking idiot” with no idea how to talk to a woman. It’s true. I’m not particularly… normal? I’m intense and awkward, and I speak before I think, or so I have been informed countless times. I was enjoying arguing with my mother too much to realize I’d hurt you. My words were careless, and I’m sorry. Please believe I meant everything I said to you before that. You astonish me, and I want to spend more time with you.
> 
> I wish I had your number so I could call you and tell you this directly, but your profile on the English department's webpage only had this email. Cute photo, by the way. Hopefully you see this soon.
> 
> I would have hunted you down on campus, but I’m on the way to the airport right now. Unfortunately, I have to attend a month-long retreat at my uncle’s weird complex in Ireland to record the next season of _Secrets of Planet Earth_. You’ve seen the show, so you probably know Luke Skywalker is the producer. Well, he’s also my mother’s brother and an absolute nutcase, but when my family forgave me for some early bad behavior and anger management problems (which have been addressed in therapy, don’t worry), he insisted I help him out on the show. That’s how I became Kylo Ren.
> 
> Anyway, you probably don’t care about all that. The point is: I only have another two hours in the country, and I won’t have internet access for most of the next month. We’re recording on an island called Ahch-To off the west coast of Ireland, but I’ll have internet once a week when I go to the mainland for a break. I hope you email me back. Even if you don’t forgive me, please tell me you understand.
> 
> Please tell me I’m not alone in this.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

Rey was crying by the time she finished reading the email. Ben had reached out to her only an hour after the awful conversation with Leia. He’d apologized. He’d _ cared_.

And because Rey was a fool who never checked her university email account, she’d had no idea.

She clicked to the next email, feeling like the worst person in the world. Ben had emailed her over and over again, and she’d never answered. Had he given up?

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: Flying away from you is unbearable**
> 
> My dearest goddess,
> 
> It’s foolish to imagine you’ve already read my email, but I can’t resist emailing you again. A poem came to my mind that reminds me of you: Sonnet 29, by Shakespeare.
> 
> When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,  
I all alone beweep my outcast state,  
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,  
And look upon myself and curse my fate,  
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,  
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,  
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope  
With what I most enjoy contented least;  
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,  
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,  
(Like to the lark at break of day arising  
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;  
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings  
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
> 
> You make me feel like a better man. Like anything is possible. For once, I have something beautiful and good to strive for.
> 
> Please forgive me.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

The emails grew more and more desperate.

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: In the terminal**
> 
> Dear Rey,
> 
> My flight is boarding. I’ll check my email again once I’m on the ground.
> 
> How many ways can a man say sorry? If apologies were flowers, I would pick a bouquet and present them to you. I would strew petals at your feet and shower you in blossoms.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

\--

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: Landed**
> 
> Dearest Rey,
> 
> On the ground in Dublin. It’s an ungodly hour of the night and this taxi driver is very rude. Nevertheless, my thoughts are full of you.
> 
> Will I ever see your sweet smile again?
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

\--

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: “It is Here,” by Harold Pinter**
> 
> What sound was that?  
I turn away, into the shaking room.  
What was that sound that came in on the dark?  
What is this maze of light it leaves us in?  
What is this stance we take,  
To turn away and then turn back?  
What did we hear?  
It was the breath we took when we first met.  
Listen. It is here.
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

\--

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: Week 1**
> 
> Well, the first week of recording with Luke is over, and I finally have internet access again. Did you know a shrimp’s heart is located in its head? My heart is located in my chest, and it hurts a lot.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

\--

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: Week 2**
> 
> "Recreation," by Audre Lorde
> 
> Coming together   
it is easier to work   
after our bodies   
meet  
paper and pen  
neither care nor profit  
whether we write or not  
but as your body moves  
under my hands   
charged and waiting   
we cut the leash  
you create me against your thighs   
hilly with images  
moving through our word countries   
my body  
writes into your flesh  
the poem  
you make of me.
> 
> Touching you I catch midnight   
as moon fires set in my throat   
I love you flesh into blossom   
I made you  
and take you made  
into me.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

\--

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: Re: Week 2**
> 
> Am I being too intense? I’m probably being too intense. Sorry. I just really like you and want to see you again.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

Rey’s heart felt like it was wrapped in thorns, every beat drawing blood. He’d emailed her over and over again, apologizing and sending her poetry, professing his interest in her. It _ was _intense—there was no doubt about that—but to someone as affection-starved as Rey, his nigh-obsessive interest was like water in the desert. He felt as deeply as she did. He, too, had been awed by the strength of their connection.

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: Week 3**
> 
> Three fucking weeks down, one to go until I’m back in the States. Luke is crazy, of course. He’s been communing with rocks and milking wildlife I’m not even sure is meant to be milked, and he’s made me repeat the same voiceover segments so many times I hear them in my sleep.
> 
> "The mantis shrimp can smash its victims' shells with the force of a .22 caliber bullet!"
> 
> "The moray eel has a second set of jaws in its throat that extends to help it consume prey!"
> 
> "Sea otters hold hands while sleeping so they don’t drift apart!"
> 
> I admit I cried at that last one, which is why we had to record it so many times.
> 
> Anyway, here’s a poem.
> 
> "To the Desert" by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
> 
> I came to you one rainless August night.  
You taught me how to live without the rain.  
You are thirst and thirst is all I know.  
You are sand, wind, sun, and burning sky,  
The hottest blue. You blow a breeze and brand  
Your breath into my mouth. You reach—then _ bend _ _  
_ _ Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new_.  
You wrap your name tight around my ribs  
And keep me warm. I was born for you.  
Above, below, by you, by you surrounded.  
I wake to you at dawn. Never break your  
Knot. Reach, rise, blow, _ Sálvame, mi dios_,  
_ Trágame, mi tierra. Salva, traga, _ Break me,  
I am bread. I will be the water for your thirst.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

\--

> **To: Rey Johnson  
From: B Solo  
Subject: Re: Week 3**
> 
> Luke says I’m being overbearing and probably harassing you and should leave you alone. Sorry.
> 
> Heading back out to Ahch-To. Won’t email you again.
> 
> Sorry again. For everything.
> 
> Ben Solo  
PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Chandrila  
Assistant Professor, Chandrila State University  
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Proust

Rey’s tears splatted on her keyboard. The one time a man she was crazy for was just as crazy for her in return, she’d fucked it up by failing to read his messages. Those emails were love letters, straight from Ben Solo's crazy, intense, wild heart.

She looked at the calendar. If he’d been in Ireland for four weeks, he ought to have returned a few days ago. True to his word, he hadn’t emailed her again.

Would he still want to hear from her? Rey hoped so, because she wasn’t going to miss out on a chance to be with this insane, poetic, erotic man—assuming he was still interested. She started typing a response, then hesitated. Apologizing and explaining would be better in person, and then maybe she could kiss him after.

Eventually, she decided to text Leia, instead.

Rey: Can you give me Ben’s address or phone number?  
Rey: Please.  
Rey: I messed up and didn’t see his emails. I need to make this right.  
  
Leia: i swear the two of you are going to send me into an early grave with all your drama  
Leia: i guess this explains the moping  
Leia: han says ben's just a drama queen, which is rich, coming from han  
Leia: anyway  
Leia: family dinner is at 7pm tonight  
Leia: be there

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's right, I added a chapter! I needed a little more space to wrap things up. I hope you liked this chapter and aren't mad at Ben anymore, haha! You were all so upset with him, poor emo baby!


	7. Chapter 7

It was a cold night, but Rey stood outside Leia’s house for far too long, shivering in her thin coat.

What if Ben didn’t want to talk to her? What if he was upset with her for ignoring him for so long? What if she’d just imagined their whole crazy connection and this ended in disaster?

Rey wasn’t used to things working out in her life, especially when it came to people. Finn was a notable exception, as was Leia, but she still felt terrified. Being rejected over and over again, starting with her own parents, had done serious damage to her self-esteem and ability to trust.

She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She could do this. If Ben had been brave enough to send her a month of love emails, she could be brave enough to show up at his family dinner and tell him she liked him. She did wish Leia had just given her Ben’s phone number, but maybe this was her advisor’s idea of revenge for their unfortunately public display of intimacy. Or maybe Leia just knew Rey well enough to worry that she would chicken out at the last minute.

Rey was committed to this course of action, though. She pushed the doorbell, and a faint chime sounded in the house. A loud bark was followed by the distinctive click-click of claws, and then the door opened to reveal a tall, silver-haired man and an enormous brown dog. Rey recognized the man from the photo on her advisor’s desk: Han, Leia’s husband.

The dog launched itself at Rey, nuzzling her thighs with so much enthusiasm she staggered back. “Easy, Chewie,” Han said, laughing as he grabbed the dog’s collar to restrain him. “He’s harmless, just enthusiastic.”

Rey beamed at the shaggy creature, which looked a bit like a mop. “He’s adorable,” she said, scratching behind the dog’s ears as his tail thumped the hardwood floor.

Han stuck out his hand and shook Rey’s firmly. “I’m Han. You must be Rey, Leia’s star pupil.” He winked. “Got pulled into the family drama, did you?”

Rey’s cheeks heated at the memory of exactly _ how _ she’d gotten pulled into the family drama. “Uh, yes. Is… is Ben here?” Her pulse thrummed like a hummingbird’s wings at the thought of seeing him again.

“Not yet, but that kid always runs a little late. Come on in.”

Rey followed Han inside. She’d never been to Leia’s house before, but the spacious abode suited her advisor perfectly. It was cozy yet clearly expensive, with bookshelves lining many of the walls. Han led Rey into a dining room with a table set for four.

Leia looked up from where she was pouring wine. “Oh, good,” she said. “I was hoping you’d get here before Ben. I want to see the look on that big lunk’s face when he realizes you’re here.”

Rey winced. “I’m glad you find this… entertaining? But he’s probably going to be upset to see me.” Since he probably thought Rey had ghosted him and all.

“Oh, nonsense. He’ll be thrilled.” Leia finished setting the table, then retrieved a charcuterie tray from the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s get started with some appetizers and drinking.”

They took their seats, and Han leaned over to whisper in Rey’s ear. “Sorry, kid. I told her she should leave the two of you alone, but she can’t resist meddling in Ben’s love life.”

“I heard that,” Leia said, pointing at him with the cube of cheese she’d speared. “If I hadn’t meddled, he would have just moped around for the next decade, pining over her.”

Rey refrained from pointing out that, no, that wouldn’t have happened, because she would have hunted him down one way or another. Leia had apparently decided to play matchmaker, and when the woman got an idea in her head, she was impossible to sway.

Hearing Leia talk about Ben pining made Rey feel pleasantly warm and shivery, though. No one had ever pined over Rey, much less someone so smart and attractive. It was intoxicating.

They chatted about Rey’s research, but Rey could barely focus on the conversation, too busy listening for Ben’s arrival. Finally, the doorbell rang, and Chewie bolted out from beneath the table. Han got up, complaining about his aching joints, then winked at Rey before heading for the entrance. Rey’s knee bounced, and her fingers tapped nervously on the stem of her wineglass.

“It’ll all work out,” Leia said, reaching over to pat Rey’s hand. “You’ll see.”

Then Han was back, and behind him, tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome, was Ben. He looked gorgeous in his black button-up and dark-wash jeans, his hair tousled as if he’d been running a hand through it. “I don’t know why I’m even here,” he was grumbling. “I told her I wasn’t in the mood—”

He stopped dead, eyes widening behind his glasses as he noticed Rey. She smiled, lips trembling. “Hey,” she said softly.

Ben’s eyes darted between her and Leia. Then he scowled. “No. I’m not doing this.” Before Rey could speak, he turned and stormed away. The front door slammed behind him.

“Well,” Leia said into the silence left in Ben’s wake. “I thought he’d at least hear her out.”

The words propelled Rey into motion. She launched up from her chair, almost knocking her wine glass over. Muttering apologies, she ran after Ben, nearly tripping over Chewie as he jogged alongside her, barking excitedly.

By the time she burst out into the chilly evening air, Ben was already at his car. He fumbled with his keys and cursed foully when he dropped them. It gave Rey a few precious seconds to catch up. She skidded to a stop next to him… or at least, she tried to. Her momentum was too great, and she ended up crashing into him, knocking him against his car door.

“What the fuck?” he exclaimed.

Deciding to go with it, Rey slapped her hands on either side of him, caging him in with her body. It was laughable, considering how much bigger than her he was, but he actually looked a little intimidated as he stared down at her with wide eyes and flared nostrils.

“I didn’t get your emails,” Rey said bluntly. “At least, not right away.”

Ben stood perfectly still for a few seconds, eyes flicking over her face. Then he sighed, shoulders drooping. “It’s okay, Rey,” he said in that low, rumbling voice she loved so much. “You don’t have to let me down gently. It ended up being a one-time thing for you, and that’s fine.”

She couldn’t take the pain written in every line of his face. “It wasn’t,” she said, shifting her hands to his muscled shoulders. He was warm and solid, everything she’d been missing. “A one-time thing, that is. I just hadn’t logged into my university email account for a few months.”

His jaw dropped. “A few _months?_ What sort of institution allows that kind of negligence?”

“That’s not the point.” She curled her fingers, digging in to the tough muscle beneath his shirt, and stepped closer. “The point is that I finally read them, and I have something to tell you.”

He looked down at her with an agonized mix of hope and fear that nearly broke Rey’s heart. This poor man had thought he was all alone for an entire month, just as she had. He’d thought she didn’t care, didn’t want to see him, didn’t even want to answer his emails.

She took a deep breath. “Don’t go far off,” she said in a voice that trembled, “not even for a day, because—”

Ben made a strangled sound, then swooped down to kiss her. Rey laughed against his lips, then pulled back to keep reciting the poem she’d spent the previous night memorizing.

“Because—I don’t know how to say it: a day is long  
And I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station  
When the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.”

Ben’s arms wrapped around her, and he lifted her bodily off the ground, interrupting the recitation yet again with the crash of his lips over hers. Rey kissed him back, delving her fingers into his hair and wrapping her legs around his waist as he stepped away from the car door.

He carried her forward, then set her down on the hood of the car and spread her legs, making room for himself in the vee of her thighs. “Keep going,” he said as he began kissing down her neck.

Rey struggled to focus on the words, too enamored by the intoxicating pleasure of his lips painting trails of fire over her skin.

“Don't leave me, even for an hour, because  
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,  
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift  
into me, choking my lost heart.”

Ben slid a hand up beneath her shirt, palming her breast over the thin fabric of her bra. Rey gasped and arched into him, pushing her nipple into his palm. In response, he pinched and tugged on it, sending jolts of pleasure down between her legs. “More,” he demanded, sucking a bruise into the sensitive skin at the base of her throat.

“Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;  
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.  
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest…”

Rey choked on the words as Ben’s questing fingers slid down her abdomen to toy with the waistband of her jeans. He flicked the button open and pulled the zipper down. “Ben,” she gasped, a smidgen of sense returning to her heated brain. “We’re in your parents’ driveway.”

“It’s their own damn fault,” he growled, working his fingers into her panties. “Setting us up like this.” He kissed her again, hard and fast. “I have to touch you. I can’t wait.” He brushed her clitoris, making her jerk and moan. He captured the sound with his mouth and rubbed the swollen nub again, and Rey rocked against his touch, rapidly losing the ability to reason.

Ben broke away from the kiss. “Finish it,” he said hoarsely, continuing to stroke between her legs.

There were only a few lines left, and thank God for that, because Rey wasn’t sure she could make it through more stanzas.

“...because in that moment you'll have gone so far  
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking  
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?”

Ben nuzzled into her throat. “That’s how I felt,” he whispered. “When I was in Ireland and couldn’t reach you. Like my heart was dying. Like I’d seen the sun for the first time in my life, and then everything went dark again.”

Rey groaned and grabbed his cheeks, pulling her face up to hers. “This is so intense,” she said, resting her forehead against his as she rocked her hips to his touch. “Like, insanely intense.”

“It is,” he agreed. “But you like that, don’t you, Rey? You feel it, too.” His deep voice rumbled into her, and his fingers slipped lower to toy with her soaked entrance.

She gasped. “I do,” she confessed, tipping her hips to give him better access.

There was a banging sound from the house, and Rey twitched, remembering where they were. She broke away from Ben and looked over his shoulder.

Han was standing in the entrance, hand covering his eyes while he rapped his knuckles on the door. “I’m not looking,” he announced, “but half the neighborhood probably is. Why don’t you kids take this somewhere else before you traumatize Leia any further?”

Rey flushed with mortification, but to her surprise, Ben laughed, a full and joyous sound. He grinned down at Rey, cheeks creasing adorably. “That sounds like a perfect idea.”

#

Twenty minutes later, Rey pulled up outside Ben’s apartment complex in downtown Chandrila. He’d wanted her to drive with him, but Rey had doubted his ability to keep his hands to himself while driving, and she hadn’t been eager to return to Leia’s house the next morning to retrieve her car. Even if Leia no doubt knew what they were doing, there was no need to enact a modern walk of shame.

Ben was waiting for her on the sidewalk, and the moment she exited the vehicle, he surged forward and scooped her into his arms in a bridal carry. Rey laughed and hit the key fob, locking her car before he swept her into the building.

A smartly-attired doorman greeted them. “Good evening, Mr. Solo. Good evening, Miss.”

“Johnson,” Ben said as he bypassed the doorman. "Rey Johnson." He shuffled Rey in his arms until he could jab the elevator button. “You’re going to be seeing a lot of her from now on.”

Rey giggled and buried her face in his shoulder. “Wow, presumptuous,” she joked.

He looked down at her fondly. “You recited poetry for me. There’s no way I’m letting you go now.”

Once they were in the elevator, he put her down to key in a private code and push the button for the top floor, then scooped her up again. The elevator climbed swiftly, and the doors opened directly into a black-and-white tiled foyer. An arched entrance led into an elegant, minimalist apartment with a gorgeous view of downtown Chandrila.

Rey shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Ben lived in the penthouse, considering what she knew about Leia’s family fortune, but it still intimidated her. She was acutely aware of her worn jeans, thrift-store blouse, and teal Converse, an outfit that had seemed cute earlier when leaving her apartment but now seemed cheap and tacky.

Ben, though, didn’t seem to find anything odd about Rey’s presence in such a fancy place. He carried her inside, bypassing the living room and its gorgeous view to take her into a richly-appointed bedroom with a large picture window shielded by wooden blinds. He tossed her onto the bed, and Rey laughed as she bounced on the mattress, nerves dissipating as an erotic thrill washed over her.

Ben grabbed her by the ankles and tugged her towards the end of the bed. The black coverlet was buttery-soft, and Rey slid across it smoothly, loose hair haloing out around her. Ben attacked the laces of her sneakers, brow furrowed in concentration, then chucked the shoes across the room. They thunked against the wall, narrowly missing a tall decorative vase, and Rey winced.

“Please don’t break your things,” she said. “I’ll feel so guilty.”

He paused in stripping off her socks to look up at her hungrily from beneath his lashes. “I’ll break every damn thing in this place if it means getting you naked.” As if proving his point, he threw her balled-up socks at his dresser, knocking off a photo frame.

Apparently there would be no talking sense into the man, so Rey gave up and stopped worrying about his fancy apartment. He was working on the button of her jeans, anyway, and there was no chance she could stay rational knowing what was to come.

He stripped her to her bra and underwear, then paused to take her in, eyes raking hungrily over her form. Rey trembled under his stare, feeling exposed even though her light blue bra and panties covered her most intimate parts.

“Just as beautiful as I remember,” Ben said, trailing a finger up from her ankle to her knee. “I can’t even think of a poem that does you justice.”

She squirmed in pleasure at the praise. “You’re beautiful, too,” she said honestly. “Please take your clothes off.”

Ben’s smile turned wicked, and he slowly shook his head. “I have a better idea.”

Before Rey could ask what that was, he pulled her into his arms again. He strode towards the window and deposited her on her feet, then pulled the cord to raise the blinds.

Rey instinctively shielded herself, but she needn’t have worried—they weren’t backlit, and they were high enough up that no one had a direct view into the apartment. Chandrila spread below them in a glittering tapestry, life moving in electric pulses as car brakes flared and lights flickered on and off in the deepening night.

Ben stepped behind her, pressing his front to her back as he gently pulled her hands away from her body. “I’m going to make you come here first,” he said, pinning her arms at her side and crowding her forward until her breasts were pressed against the glass. It was cold even through the fabric of her bra, and her nipples tightened as she shivered.

“Why?” she asked, nudging her ass back against him. He was hard beneath his jeans, and she hummed in delight at the feel of his huge cock straining against the fabric.

He chuckled. “Why not?” His hands coasted over her upper arms, raising goosebumps in their wake. “Even if no one can see us, I like the idea of showing you off. Proving to the whole fucking world that you’re mine, that I’m the lucky bastard who gets to make you scream.”

Rey moaned and tipped her head back against his shoulder. She liked that, too. “Do it,” she said, grinding against him. “Make me scream, Ben.”

He stripped her bra off efficiently, then knelt behind her to drag her panties down her legs. Rey shivered again, goosebumps sprouting over her skin as heat pooled between her thighs.

“I can smell how aroused you are,” Ben said. He kissed the crease between her ass and thigh, then nipped the cheek, making her yelp. “You’re going to soak my fingers, aren’t you?”

Rey nodded and widened her stance, giving him more room.

He sank his teeth gently into her other ass cheek. “Tell me, Rey. Let me hear you.”

“I’m going to soak your fingers.” Her voice trembled, matching the shaking in her knees.

His lips stroked over the spot he’d bitten, and she felt his smile against her skin. “Good.”

He popped her hips back, bending her forward slightly, and she braced her forearms against the glass. Her pussy was exposed to him now, wet and swollen, but Rey couldn’t feel self-conscious about it. Not with the way his breathing was audibly ragged, not with the way his fingers slid slowly between her legs, the touch light and reverent. “Gorgeous,” he said, stroking her outer lips before sliding between them, spreading her for his gaze and touch.

“Ben,” she said, soft and needy. A plea for him to put his mouth on her, his fingers inside her, to bring her to the ecstatic heights she knew he was capable of. “More.”

“I like looking at you,” he said, one fingertip questing forward to gently circle her clitoris. “You look beautiful like this, standing naked in the moonlight with the lights of the city dancing over your skin. Like a work of art.”

Rey groaned and rested her forehead against the glass. “You’re going to kill me.”

He chuckled. “Why?”

“Because you say things like that, and then you make me_ wait_.”

In response, he licked a broad stripe from her clit to her ass. Rey squeaked, taken off guard by the sudden movement. He did it again, his strong tongue lingering in her dips and folds. He explored her thoroughly, moving at a leisurely pace that implied he wasn’t doing this for her benefit, but for his own. “Mmmm,” he said, smacking his lips. “You taste beautiful, too.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said breathily. She moaned as he tugged her hips even farther away from the window, then gripped her cheeks to open her up for his mouth.

“Sure it does,” he said, tongue tracing the sensitive pucker of her ass. Rey giggled and tried to squirm away, but he held her fast, tongue dancing over her, leaving no spot untouched. “You look beautiful, you sound beautiful, you smell beautiful, you taste beautiful…” His nose rubbed over her pussy as he laved at her clit. “Face it, Rey,” he said when he finally broke for air. “You’re beautiful.”

Rey wanted to cry. What had she done to deserve this gorgeous, intense man kissing her and saying such sweet things? When he released one ass cheek to slip a finger inside her, a sob of pleasure burst from her throat.

“All right there?” he asked in that voice that made her think of midnight and velvet and dark, unholy things. He crooked the finger, rubbing over her inner wall.

“Ben, please.” She was quivering with need, her body lit up from his teasing.

“Please, what?” He stroked that finger inside her again.

Rey whined and pushed her hips back, needing more pressure. “Please make me come,” she said.

His finger slid out of her, and he surged upright, then fisted a hand in her hair to tug her up until her naked back was pressed to his front. “Oh, I’m going to make you come,” he vowed, breath puffing against her ear. His hand dropped to her right thigh, lifting her leg off the ground, and then his free hand sank between her legs to toy with her clitoris. “I’m going to make you come all over my fucking fingers, and then you’re going to come on my cock, and then I’m going to take you to bed and do it all over again.”

Rey whimpered and reached behind to wrap her arms around his neck. Two fingers sank into her, and she felt like a butterfly pinned and on display. He crowded her forward until her breasts were pressed against the glass again, fingers working diligently inside her while his thumb nudged her clit. It was so much stimulation: the heat of his body at her back, the cold of the window against her nipples, the aching, twisting pleasure building in her lower belly. Everything was heightened by the illicit feeling of being laid bare for the entire city.

His fingers worked harder, stretching her open with lewd, slick sounds. She was practically dripping for him. “Please fuck me,” she gasped, about to lose her mind.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

He drew his fingers out of her, and she keened in protest, but then he applied his index and middle finger to her clit, rubbing in firm circles. Rey bucked against him, but the hand on her thigh and the glass pressing firm against her breasts and upraised knee held her in place. The pleasure built and built… then snapped all at once.

Rey shuddered, saying his name over and over again. His actual name, this time: “Ben, Ben, Ben…”

He fumbled between their bodies, and Rey was still twitching when she heard the telltale sound of a zipper being dragged down. He bent his knees to get a proper angle, and then the tip of his dick was nudging her entrance, hot and smooth. He surged inside with one powerful movement, his thick cock nearly splitting her open.

The air burst from Rey’s lungs. “Oh,” she said as he bottomed out, the thrust so firm she had to tip up onto her toes to accommodate it. “_Oh_.”

Her pussy spasmed around him, and Ben swore. “Shit, Rey.” He held her in place, one hand still gripping her right thigh hard enough to bruise, the other moving to lightly circle her neck. He bent his knees to withdraw, then thrust up into her again. “She comes not when Noon is on the roses,” he whispered in her ear on the next slow drag of his cock. “Too bright is Day.”

Rey groaned. If he was reciting poetry again, she really wouldn’t survive. “Don’t stop,” she said, straining up onto her toes even further to make it easier for him to plunge inside.

He kept fucking her with long, deep strokes, grunting a little every time he bottomed out. His voice hitched as he kept reciting the poem:

“She comes not to the Soul till it reposes  
From work and play.”

The hand at her throat tightened, and Rey’s pussy spasmed at the gesture of domination. In this moment, he owned her entirely.

“Fuck, look at you,” he said, apparently losing track of the poem. “Pretty little tits rubbing on the glass, pretty little cunt taking me so well.” He thrust hard and deep, making her gasp. “I want to take you apart.”

“Yes.” Her body demanded more, so Rey lowered one hand to rub her clit. Every thrust knocked her knuckles into the glass, but the slight pain didn’t matter in the face of so much overwhelming pleasure. She was spiraling up and up, the fine muscles in her body tensing as if she were about to take flight.

“But when Night is on the hills,” Ben said, “and—_fuck_.” He broke off as she tightened her inner muscles around him. “Fuck, I need you to come.”

Rey half-laughed, half-moaned. “I will,” she vowed, rubbing harder. “Soon. Just keep going.”

He took a deep breath before launching into the poem again.

“But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices  
Roll in from Sea,  
By starlight and candle-light and dreamlight  
She comes to me.”

He punctuated the final line with a hard thrust that left Rey seeing stars. “Come for me,” he murmured. His breathing was harsh in her ear, and then he nipped her earlobe, the sharp pinch adding one more stimulus to the overwhelming symphony of sensation.

Rey pressed hard on her clit, and the tension finally exploded into devastating pleasure. Her legs shook as the orgasm barreled through her, bright and incandescent as starlight. Sharp cries poured out of her mouth in time with the jerk of her hips.

Ben was muttering in her ear, foul curses mixed with praise and scraps of poetry. Then he groaned loud and long and stiffened inside her, body twitching and trembling with his own orgasm.

Rey sagged against the glass, hardly able to stay upright. The cold was welcome against her heated forehead, and she turned her head to get that chill against her flushed cheek. Ben stayed pressed against her, lips moving soundlessly through the hair just above her ear.

Finally, he pulled out, keeping a hand on Rey’s waist so she wouldn’t topple over. He scooped her up in his arms and staggered over to the bed, dropping her and crawling onto the soft sheets beside her. They lay on their sides, staring at each other and breathing heavily.

“Wow,” Rey said at last.

Ben’s lips parted, and then he smiled the most brilliant grin she had ever seen. His glasses were askew, and the combination made him look almost boyish, no longer the brooding, intense poetry enthusiast she’d first met. “That about sums it up,” he said, stroking a hand over her side. His eyes tracked the path of his fingers into the dip of her waist and over her hip. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”

Rey sighed and scooted closer until she could notch her head under his chin. His heartbeat pattered wildly under her palm. “I’m so happy I am,” she said. “Even if it feels like a dream.”

“Starlight and candlelight and dreamlight,” he mused. “You know, you’re the only person I’ve ever met who feels like a poem.”

She wrinkled her nose. “What does that mean?”

The hand exploring her side coasted to her back, then down to cup her ass, pulling her closer. She slung a leg over his side and pressed her core against his—already stiffening—cock. “Everything about you is like poetry. Unbearably beautiful, with your own unique rhythms and stanzas. I want to memorize you.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and she clutched him tighter. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

He pulled back enough to tip her face up to his, then kissed her, slow and soft. “You deserve sweetness,” he said. “And Lord knows I’m the least likely candidate to give it to you, but I’m going to do my best.” His hips rocked, nudging his hardening cock against her clit.

“I don’t know,” Rey teased, grinding against him. “You say you’ll give me sweet, but what if I want it a little dirty?”

That fast, Ben flipped her onto her back and settled between her legs. He looked down at her with mock sternness. “Were you paying attention to _any_ of my lectures? Sweet and dirty are not mutually exclusive.” He rolled his hips in a way that made her gasp.

Rey giggled and tugged him down to her mouth. “Well, I’ll take you however you come,” she said between urgent kisses. “Sweet, dirty, intense… I want all of you, Ben Solo. You’re my poem, too.”

#

_ One year later _

“Shhhh!” Rey gestured for quiet. “It’s starting.”

The chatter diminished. As a familiar swell of strings filled the room, Finn flipped the light switch, leaving their apartment dark except for the glow of the TV.

“Welcome to _Secrets of Planet Earth_,” a dark whiskey voice said, and the room burst into applause.

At Rey’s side, Ben groaned. “Do we have to do this?” he complained.

“Hush.” Rey snuggled into him, grinning at his obvious discomfort. “It’s a new season. Of course we have to do this.”

Over the last year, they’d built a small community together. Finn and Poe sat together on a new loveseat (“I just can’t look at our couch the same,” Finn had complained before buying it), while Leia and Han occupied chairs at the back of the room. Rose, Jessika, and Kaydel from the English department giggled from their seats on the floor. Even Ben’s crazy uncle, Luke Skywalker, was in town, leaning against a wall and sipping a green smoothie while he scowled at the screen. Chewie thumped his tail and leaned against the grouchy producer's leg.

“In the vast steppes of Mongolia, an unusual predator begins the hunt for food…”

Finn leaned in. “This isn’t going to get awkward for the rest of us, is it?” he asked Rey, not nearly quietly enough. “Should I have put a tarp down under you?”

She punched his arm, making him yelp. “Shut up,” she hissed under her breath.

“I’m just worried for your health, Peanut. This episode does focus on apex predators, and I know you have a thing for all those claws and gore—”

Finn stopped talking when Ben gave him a_ look_. Despite being on friendly terms with Ben, Finn was still far more intimidated by him than he let on.

For her part, Rey just blushed and squirmed, because, yeah, she would always get a little hot for Ben’s voice. Plus, she was proud of him for his voiceover work, and he was sitting right next to her with one huge hand resting possessively on her thigh, and—

“Do you?” Ben's low rumble broke her concentration.

She tore her gaze away from his long, talented fingers and blinked up at him. “What?”

“Need a tarp.”

She slapped his shoulder this time, eliciting a chuckle. By now Ben knew all the sordid details of her Kylo Ren fixation, and, thankfully for her, found it both hilarious and romantic. “Who am I to judge?” he’d asked months ago, when she’d first confessed to her unusual masturbation habits. “I recited poetry to your clitoris the second time we ever met.”

As the voice of Kylo Ren detailed the hunting habits of a rare eagle, Rey leaned in and kissed Ben, ignoring Finn’s noise of disgust and Leia’s delighted “awww.” His lips were soft and warm, and Rey thought she could kiss him forever.

“Your voice is hot,” she whispered when she was finally done kissing him, “but the rest of you is even hotter.”

He leaned in to press his lips against her ear. “Are you sure you don’t want me to role-play Kylo in the bedroom tonight?” he breathed, an offer for her ears alone.

She bit her lip to stifle a giggle. “Maybe,” she murmured back.

“Can you two stop whispering?” Luke asked, sounding annoyed. “We’re trying to watch the show.”

“In the Chandrilan wilderness,” Ben growled in her ear, ignoring his uncle’s protest, “an unusual predator named Ben Solo stalks his prey. The wild Rey Johnson tries to flee, but it’s no use—with Ben’s superior speed, he’ll soon catch her and devour her alive.”

“Fortunately,” Rey said, tugging him into another kiss, “she wants to be caught.”

#

"La Vita Nuova"  
by Dante Alighieri

In that book which is my memory,  
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,  
Appear the words, ‘Here begins a new life.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and supporting this odd little fic! It's a mish-mash of a bunch of things I love, so I was delighted to see so many other people love those things, too!
> 
> If you enjoyed it, please let me know!
> 
> ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
> 
> \-----  
A sampling of my other works, for those interested:
> 
> [They Don't Have A Word For What We Are](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17867792/chapters/42167327) \- canon-compliant, post-TLJ smutfest with lots of plot. Rated E, complete at 69 chapters.  
[Satan in a Three-Piece Suit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19104316/chapters/45392914) \- Modern enemies-to-lovers AU set in an office. Rated E, complete at 13 chapters  
[Sensual Storytime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20330854/chapters/48205285) \- Modern AU where IT nerd Ben Solo moonlights as erotic audio narrator Kylo Ren. Rated E, complete at 7 chapters  
[The Rebel's Secret Passion" by B.S. Kysses](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19181209/chapters/45594586) \- Cracky canonverse comedy featuring romance novelist/Supreme Leader Kylo Ren and Rey, who is unknowingly his biggest fan. Rated E, complete at 15 chapters  
[Rev Me Up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18977620/chapters/45061165) \- Modern AU set at a car show. Rated E, complete at 5 chapters.  
[The Elusive Mating Dance of the Porgus Adorabilis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19053454/chapters/45258604) \- Modern AU where Rey is an ornithologist and Kylo Ren is a playboy who crash lands his plane on the island where she's doing her research. Rated E, complete at 8 chapters.  
[Revenge is a Dish Best Served Loud](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19736383/chapters/46711633) \- Modern AU where neighbors Rey and Ben plot revenge against the housesitter having loud sex in Ben's bed. Rated E, complete at 4 chapters.  
[Sleight of Hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19848865/chapters/47003071) \- Modern AU where Kylo is a magician. Rated E, complete at 2 chapters  
[Getting Handy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21595942/) \- Modern AU where Ben’s not sure how to flirt with the woman who performs repairs at his apartment complex, so he keeps breaking things in order to see her again. Rated E, WIP  
[One-Shots!](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1387747)  



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